Re:isuzu 1.5td 4ec1 engine conversion

Looks great, I see you have great tools and skills for fabricating parts

Well i'm an automotive engineer and have free access to a CAD package for the design work, and fortunately i work at a place where i can use the kit for my own purposes and we've got some really good contacts to get small stuff made cheap/for free. Should have a nice CNC machined billet spacer for the gearstick coming today/tomorrow

*any of the ratty welding is mine, all the lovely neat welding is our fabricator's

Oh god i love ebay, and the piece price of mass produced OEM car parts!! Just bought a brand new radiator for a mk1 renault Megane for £22 including delivery. I chose this one as it should fit nicely in the available space and it has both hose spigots on the near side. They need to be on that side really for a neat install, avoiding having a great big top hose cutting across in front of the engine.

I also bought a brand new genuine ford intercooler that isn't a big wide one for £17 including delivery!!!! This one is more of a punt and hopefully i'll be able t work it in somewhere nice.

Just did a quick calc and the new gearstick should give me the choice between a maximum leverage ratio of 4.82 and a min of 3.69. The standard gearstick had a ratio of roughly 6.29 giving a throw of 122mm. This means that the throw of the new gear knob will be reduced by between 24% and 41% (also giving an equivalent increase in required gearstick effort). I've not driven a vauxhall Omega but i've seen anecdotal evidence that the standard gear change is sloppy and not very nice. With this in mind hopefully the new setup will be tune-able to a much nicer feel whilst giving me the 'defender' look i was going for.

Gearstick is ready for a trial fit so I can make sure it works properly and put a bend in the bar to get the gear knob in the right place. Quite chuffed with the spacer block, especially as it was FOC.

Also had the two odd ends of the prop shaft machined so that they spigot together. Just need a bit of cleaning up and then welding.

looking good,

Yes its all good there. some proper engineering going into this project

Thanks for the replies guys.

Just put a couple of bends in the gear stick so that it sits where I want in the neutral position. Chucked a bit of paint on and I'll fit it properly tomorrow.

Also mocked up the radiator and intercooler, both look like they should work well

Fitted my new adjustable panhard rod with a slight bend in it so it will clear the sump at full bump and avoid having to modify my brand new replacement sump

Looking good. You have to make that bend yourself or do the rods come like that?

No i got someone to do it for me who's got oxy acetylene as it needed a fair bit of heat.

Right, It's been ages again since i last posted but i have intermittently been working on the Jimny. Haven't quite had it running yet but isn't far off now. The work i've done since my last post is:

Test fitted the gearstick. Works a treat, just the amount of throw i was after and a really nice feel to it.



Had the prop shortened



Relocated alternator, new water pump, painted pulley, sorted new belt and tensioner. Took a bit of messing about and buying the wrong sized belt but got there in the end. I'll remake the bracket in the future but it's functional for now.



Repositioned vac pump so drain would clear heat shield. I had to remove/disassemble the pump so i could accurately measure the backplate on a CMM and use this data to design a new one on CAD albeit with a 2nd set of mounting holes rotated by 25 degrees. My boss cut it out for me on the CNC mill and it works a treat




Fitted new hoses to vac pump and replaced all the banjo fittings. I'll probably tap into the oil feed in the future for a pressure gauge on the dash.



Tarted up heat shields as new ones aren't available. This involved snapping some bolts in the manifold which was fun to sort out







Fitted fuel filter housing. Made a new bracket that picked up on some existing captive nuts in the wing



New thermostat and changed temperature gauge sender for one that is compatible with the jimny



Spaced out thrust bearing as i'm using a single mass flywheel. Also made new copper pipe to fit and added a flexi pipe from the bellhousing to the bulkhead pipe coming from the master cylinder



New sump and bellhousing closure plate. I'm hoping that the standard new sump will clear the steering rod at full bump but we'll see...



Bracket for header tank. This allows a header tank from a mk4 Astra to be used




Finding out which temperature sensor to buy was a real pain as the loom in my Jimny had a 3 pin connector for the temperature sensor. 3 pin sensors for JImny's appear to be very difficult to get hold of and therefore expensive. In the end i took a gamble on a cheap 2 pin one from ebay and fortunately it worked perfectly when i bench tested it with the instrument binnacle.
This is the sensor i used, its got an M12x1.5 thread so i had to drill and tap the thermostat housing to accept it



Beforehand i tested the gauge with a potentiometer to see what resistance it required to get the gauge to sit in the normal temperature position


I've also done a load of work on the wiring harness, both deleting what i don't need on the existing stuff and trying to integrate the engine harness for the isuzu engine. I've still got the wiring to finish off plus:

Fit steering pump from mk4 astra and plumb/wire
Finish plumbing coolant system
Fit and wire electric fan. Hopefully should be able to use a renault one that will fit straight to the radiator.
Fill engine and gearbox with oil
Mock up some kind of exhaust (side exit hopefully)

This is going to be able to roll up a mountain on tickover!