Alright, so where was I?
Oh yes.
The diesel... the poor, poor, diesel. My dear puzzle, and sometimes, seemingly, my only friend. Winters in New England are long and cold, and the roads are full of salt. She must have sat in the backyard for 90% of her life back East... half of the time because I didn't want her in the salt... the other half because her 30 year old glow plugs didn't have the heart or the strength to warm her cylinders anymore.
I remember many a cold morning in Boston, where I would wake up hours early to unthaw myself with a warm cup of tea, and look out the window to see my rabbit, covered in a foot or so of snow. The whole time that I was warming myself, I was thinking of how to warm her enough to get to school, or to work... even with the block heater plugged in since last night.
Darn! That advance knob just doesn't pull out far enough, and too bad she doesn't drink tea...
I think of all of these lousy times where I walked to work in the snow, where I blew a head gasket trying to tow a small trailer uphill, and when I just didn't have enough speed to get over into that lane to make the exit, couldn't find a fuel station with diesel... remember all of the times that I resented having the 1.5... but yet, I still couldn't sell that dumb motor.
Time to call in reinforcements.
Thankfully, I have another VW-sensitive friend who understood my predicament who was willing to help out. Hardly a week later, someone who I had only spoken to on the phone twice came to buy my motor. I tried to play it cool, and smile and stuff like I didn't care, and was happy to get the motor off of my hnds... but as soon as she drove off in her tired Chevy pickup with my motor in the bed... I cried. The tears flowed down my face, completely ruining my make up, but I was too upset to notice. I found myself kneeling in my garage, in front of my Rabbit (Gaia, her name is Gaia...) sobbing in front of her (and completely embarrassing myself... jeez, what must she think of me??) and apologizing for selling her heart. "I will find you a better one!" I promised.
(She looks so empty.....)
Jeez. I hoped that I meant that.... I don't even know what I am looking for, and I didn't know where to start.
Huh... what do I even want?
The diesel was perfect for me in so many ways. It made sense, and I had already spent a small fortune to accumulate all of the specialty tools that I needed to make her happy: the cam locking plate, the special dial indicator for pump timing, ... E36 M3, I even had my very own home-made drill extension for the oil pump hole thingy for pre-lubrication before engine assembly... Oh, WHAT!! Not to mention my hoard of random diesel parts. You know, the ancient, incredibly rusted injectors that COULD DEFINITELY BE CLEANED AND REBUILT AND USED SOME DAY.... ummm... yeah.... right. Maybe as yard art?? And those old glow plugs... and spare oil pan and intake manifold.. and what is that? Oh, the collection of pucks that you stick between your valves and camshaft. I can't even remember what all of those are called.
And the simplicity! The old diesel! No computers, no electronics, nothing complicated! Pump timing set by dial indicator, 13mm wrenches, and a pry bar!! Yes, please. Idle set by flathead screwdriver and my own 2 ears. Fabulous! A wiring harness that consisted of 1 wire to the glow plug fuse, and another to the injection pump... and then to the lights and that's it...!!!! What more could a car enthusiast and beginning hobbyist ask for?
Sigh, it was time to let go. I had given it up. Time to move on, already!!!
But, how could I choose a motor that would do justice to my dear Gaia and fit within my budget?
I decided on a motor from the VW mk3, which left me with 2 choices: the VR6 or the ABA. Now, I had once owned that VR6 GTI, and for about a week, I salivated over my Rabbit making the same gargling, throaty whirrrrrrrrrrrsss that my VR used to purr happily out the tailpipe. Oh, that would be nice, I thought. Yes, that would be nice.
But... handling? I am building an AutoXer, after all. And those motors are heavy. A little chatting with fellow VW enthusiasts, a little research, and a check-in with my budget, and I was quickly backing away from the idea of a heavy 6 cylinder, and decided on the low-maintenance, easy-going ABA. And jeez, what isn't to love about VW's simple 4 cylinder 2 liter? I guess I was going to find out.
A week later, and I ended up on the door step of a guy who was selling the motor out of his '97 Golf. What was wrong with the Golf, you ask? Why part it out? Oh, you know. He carried a truck home on the roof of it. Just the typical everyday mistake.... Yeah. Alright. The motor seemed clean and solid, so I decided to buy it for $200. With it came a bunch of accessories, and the wiring harness and ECU out of his '93 Golf. (Now, you ask, "Why not the wiring harness out of the '97, silly? It's the same motor!!" Yes indeed. "Good point," I tell you, "But OBD1 means simpler for me, and less emissions stuff." More details on this to follow in later updates....)
I took my time removing the wiring harness, labeling every single plug that I pulled apart, even if I didn't know what the thing was called that I was detatching it from. ("Passenger's side weird canister thingy, upper plug" or something to the effect, would help me reinstall it later, I was hoping.) By the time I had it all removed, I stared down at it on the ground. It looked like a couple of mating squids exploding around my feet.... I was confused already. Fabulous. This is more wires than I have ever had to deal with before. I was starting to feel inadequacy creeping in... but I tried not to let it show.
The engine fit nicely in the back of my Samurai tucked in with some couch cushions for a comfy ride, and I was off! Homeward bound for the next chapter in my Rabbit adventure.
Stay tuned!
-Anja
