91 405Mi16x4 Rear wheel drive conversion north south engine

By diyauto
( 3 )

11 minute(s) of a 241 minute read

10-17-2016

Update for today, due to colder weather the paint is drying slow, this means the garage is full of paint fumes, did not want to work in fumes, so decided to buy all paint supplies to paint and protect the engine bay, more to come.



10-19-2016

Today it was a long day in the garage, thankfully the new paint is dry and there are no more paint fumes, so next thing was to put the interior back together, i started with the carpet and the door seal molding, then the center console, then the dash extensions, had to trim them little, then i bolted the seats, and put the floor mats back, that finish is the interior, then started on the engine bay, remove the ECU box, wiper blades and their mechanisms, washer bottle, and the little plastic piece for the fresh air in the cabin, then made a temporary block off plate to avoid water getting in when i pressure wash it, then found couple of caps to block off the rest of the holes and use red silicone to seal them, the plan is to get it on the wheels ready to roll out of the garage by the weekend, weather cast predicts 20 degrees cruzis, so i can pressure wash it and wet send it, before then i have to assemble the front suspension, and get it on is wheels, more to come





10-20-2016

Today i spend couple of hours sealing all the connectors, hoses and other openings in preparation for the pressure washing, then i install the front suspension, brakes and the wheels, after that i had to clean the garage and the floor under the car there were many sharp pieces and mig wire pieces, last thing i did is to lower the car on the floor, after couple of months its on the ground, tomorrow plan is to clean right bay of garage so i can put the little kei car for the winter there, more to come.




10-22-2016

Today the weather was good, little cloudy but nevertheless i pull the mi16x4 outside to pressure wash it, the washing took me couple of hours and i got pretty wet, i had to pressure wash the floor pen and engine bay twice with industrial strength degreaser to take most of the grime off, in the pictures you can see my driveway is little steep so the mi16x4 raised the driver side tire in the air, also the little kay car is now next to this project, i don't plan to drive it in the winter, this way should be out of the elements, when mi16x4 dries have to prep the shiny paint for repainting, the factory paint seems to be very thin, more to come








10-23-2016

The car is drying so i had some free time i went looking for a turbo badge, i did not want the generic china chrome crap, and after visiting couple of breakers i found this, it is from a peugeot 306 used to say turbo D, i cut the D now do i move all my badges and put it last, do i put it down below the body line or i replace X4 with the turbo?






10-24-2016

Today i decided to do little work on the throttle body, i had a hose nipple that i tap before for a plug, but decided to re drill and retap to be installed GM air temp sensor, in preparation for when i get a stand alone ecu, more to come.






i've got a question, i want to reuse my LPG Propane system, but i don't like the location where the shop that install it place the inlet nipples they drill and tap them from the top and notch the head opening, i like to place them underneath the inlet manifold, my question is how it will affect the airflow, the nipples are tapered, so i can angle them like in the photo, any opinion.





10-25-2016

Today i spend about 10 hour working, started by jacking the car up on jack stands, then i took all wheels off, then i wrapped the k car in plastic to avoid ruining the paint, then i wrapped the mi16x4 also, then started making everything, i got bored with the masking, so i took the front suspension off to avoid overspray now is detail, next in line is to make mounts for the expansion tank, finish masking and i found couple of rusty spots in the wheel arches, they need some attention, more to come.




10-27-2016

Today the weather was nice so i decided to visit couple car breakers and found recently crash damaged, 405 series 1 probably 91 or 92, it was pretty gone, so i only took the better pieces, took the stering wheel it is lether, unfortunately it has two rips and the center cap is missing, but it can be recovered with new leather, also got the the shifter mehanizam this one has the cable for reverse so if i ever want to do a 6 speed swap i'll have it, also took all the door handles, fuel door, couple of pieces of trim, all in all good trip.




10-28-2016

Today i started with cutting little piece of metal to make room for the coolant expansion tank, then drilled two holes for the mounting pins of the tank, this completes mounting the tank, then started sanding every painted piece, when my hands started to hurt, applied the undercoating, did two coats on the new metal and frame rails, next i need to finish sending and masking, painting should be easy, more to come.








10-29-2016

Today was a long day in the garage, all the masking sanding left me with hurting hands and back, and the paint fumes gave me a good headache, the paint it shelf doesn't stink that much but the clearcoat is the worst, you can see in the pictures i painted everything in the engine bay that was black, and the wheel arches, now i can begin the reconstruction, more to come.






10-30-2016

Today i remove the masking and laid the cables where they need to go, then started on mounting the gauges, made a holder out of a pipe, got a new speaker grill to which i plan to mount them, the new paint is dry but still soft for the next couple of days plan to do other small jobs to leave it time to dry, more to come




10-31-2016

Today i continue with the gauges did the initial wiring with different color wires to be easy to connect later sorry no picture, then i started with the wiring for the cooling fans, had to mount the fan motors, changed one of them because it was very nosy, had to run a tap thru the fan mount treads, they had some rust in them, put some grease to avoid any rust in the future, i looked at the schematics to understand the how they work, so using a multimeter was easy to locate the wires, also changed the low coolant sensor plug, i'm using newer sensor located in the coolant expansion tank, more to come.




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