Expedition Allroad Update - The Engine is Here!

"Garrett Davis" (GarrettDavis)
10/03/2016 at 22:50 • Filed to: None

I finally picked up the engine! Luckily I was able to borrow my buddy’s hoist and had a friend there to help me load that in the truck, which saved me some serious effort. I didn’t think to cover the turbo oil return lines, so those puked out some lovely oil into the bed of the truck, but it wasn’t too bad. !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

As you can see in the pic up top, the Allroad is sitting on jack stands just to keep the rear bags from sitting down on themselves completely deflated. When I put it in jack mode it lowered down to level 1 and was sitting directly on the wheel wells. Since the engine obviously won’t run, the only way to run the compressor is to hook up a battery directly to the compressor and manually override it to inflate the bags. I was going to do this, but I figured it would just be right back down sitting on the rear bags again soon enough, so why bother.

I’m picking up a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! this week. Anyone have experience with these ultra cheap ones? $60 is ridiculously cheap, and its rated for 1000lbs, which my engine comes no where near. Got the clutch as well. Managed to snag an insane price on a Luk kit that came complete for about half of what everyone else was charging for the exact same part number. Only $160 shipped!

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

So while I’m getting the engine together with all the new parts, something for me to chew on is the issue of bump stops. The Allroads have them built-in inside the airbags, so I’m thinking about taking one out and checking out how I can extend the bump stop so if/when I have total bag failure (which is pretty likely), I can still move it under its own power and get it home. I found !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! where a guy just bought a kit off eBay and threw in a cheap set to help his problem with lowering his, so from seeing what that looks like, I’m thinking I might be able to stack one and a half or two of those to get the proper spacing needed to not grind my big tires in the wheel wells.

The other option I have would require some light fabrication, but might be the better long term solution, are hydraulic bump stops. These would give a more forgiving ride when approaching the limits, but more importantly, lessen the shock of hitting the bump stops in the first place, and hopefully take some stress off of the already relatively fragile A-arms. I’m going to pull off a tire front and rear and see if there is a good spot to mount these. On top of fabrication, these are definitely the most expensive option, and will probably run me upwards of $400 in parts alone. I’m definitely hesitant on that idea based on cost alone, but it would be a seriously awesome solution.

Next step is to grab that engine stand, mount the engine up, and then I can sit down and take my time in tearing it down and very carefully replacing the timing belt, with a huge thanks to my buddy Jay who will be lending his expertise on this, as he has done the timing belt on many 2.7s, and the job seems pretty damn sketchy to tackle if you don’t have the specialty tools and knowledge needed. Damn Germans...

DISCUSSION (35)

Garrett Davis > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 13:40

Annoying Kinja bug #2,398,437-b:

If you save a post as a draft and then finish and publish it later, it will put the post back with others at the time you saved the draft, hence why it says I published this at 10:30 last night.

Annoying.

E90M3 > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 13:40

You should be able to go in and update the time of the post and change it to today

HammerheadFistpunch > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 13:40

Have you looked into Timbren stops?

http://timbren.com/active-off-road-bumpstops/

These might be a good middle-ground between hydraulic stops and rubber stops. EDIT: Looks like you could also get strait replacement springs from them too...now THAT would be cool. Get all the lift you need (since you have big tires its not like you wou ld be going up and down a lot anyway) without having to do a coil conversion or add bump stops.

Garrett Davis > E90M3
10/04/2016 at 13:45

Hmm, I’ll look into that next time, thanks!

Garrett Davis > HammerheadFistpunch
10/04/2016 at 13:51

Oh cool, thanks for the share, I’m definitely going to look into these. Unfortunately they don’t seem to be any cheaper than the gas charged ones, and they look pretty bulky for my tightly packed independent suspension setup.

Any experience with them?

HammerheadFistpunch > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 13:54

The Land Cruiser guys swear by them as additional load support, but I don’t have personal experience.

lone_liberal > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 13:58

I have one of the HF engine stands. It was solid enough but when I had my SBC on it was hard to rotate. It could have been user error or just the one I have. It did rotate, though, and was good enough for what I was doing.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 14:22

you must be able to do the clutch with the engine out right? I’ll be needing to do my clutch soon, but with the engine still attache I have to start by removing the rear axles.....

DipodomysDeserti > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 14:33

This is awesome. That’s crazy how much space those engines take up. Here’s a pic of a SBC 350 and a TH350 in the back of the same, but newer truck. Didn’t even make it to the wheel wells.

Kinja'd!!!

Garrett Davis > OPPOsaurus WRX
10/04/2016 at 14:40

Yep, it’ll be easy as pie:

Kinja'd!!!

Damn, remove the rear axles? Really?

Garrett Davis > lone_liberal
10/04/2016 at 14:41

Nice, it should hold nicely then. I’ll be stopping by HF after work, so we’ll see how it does!

OPPOsaurus WRX > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 14:43

yep, that was either step one or 2, the other was remove heat shields

Garrett Davis > DipodomysDeserti
10/04/2016 at 14:45

I know, right? It is a really short block, but the V is just so wide that it spreads out like crazy. That really illustrates exactly why LS swaps are the go-to for everything. They are so compact and just fit anywhere.

You would think a 2.7l V6 would be considerably more compact than a 5.7l V8, but nope.

lone_liberal > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 14:46

It should. I don’t know what an Audi engine weighs but I would think it would be considerably less than a chunk of Detroit iron.

DipodomysDeserti > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 14:47

the V is just so wide that it spreads out like crazy.

That escalated quickly.

Garrett Davis > DipodomysDeserti
10/04/2016 at 14:48

There’s a ‘your mom’ joke in there somewhere, I just know it...

Garrett Davis > lone_liberal
10/04/2016 at 14:50

I’m not so sure on that, actually. Fully loaded including turbos and fluids, these are pushing 450lbs. I’d be willing to bet even the iron block LS weighs less than that.

Garrett Davis > OPPOsaurus WRX
10/04/2016 at 14:51

Eesh, good luck with that! Make sure to make a post when you do tackle it, haha

lone_liberal > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 14:56

I’m talking old school Gen1 small block. They weigh in somewhere around 55olbs according to Google, give or take a few pounds depending on cast iron or aluminum intake manifold.

Needmoargarage > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 15:00

I bought the Harbor Freight 1000lb engine stand. I would highly recommend immediately changing the hardware for something stronger. However, once doing that it handled a 4.6 iron block V8 just fine.

ITA97, now with more Jag @ opposite-lock.com > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 15:03

Engine stands are largely all the same. That HF stand will work just fine.

Garrett Davis > Needmoargarage
10/04/2016 at 15:11

I was thinking about swinging by the hardware store for some grade 8 hardware. I think I’ll do that.

Thanks!

Needmoargarage > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 15:15

It’s worth it. Also a heads up that the wimpy handle they supply doesn’t always give me enough leverage...especially since there is a lot of friction between the stand frame and part that mounts to the engine. I use a long steel rod I had lying around.

SantaRita > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 15:27

Harbor freight, for nominally more (10-15$) has a stand that is for 1500 or 2000lbs...main difference is TWO legs instead of the single center leg.

I was only working on a 300lb wankel but my 1000lb stand wanted to fall over (and at one point, it did tip over on top of me which hurt) when I did heavy torquing in the direction of the vee made by the Lower legs on the 1000lb version. I thing another lower leg would have helped.

the head wants to walk around in the support a lot when you spin the motor which makes putting the locking pin harder/annoying.

and the handle has a cotter pin which will cut your hand if left in...but the handle will fall on your foot if you don’t. your choice.

I’d buy another again FWIW.

OPPOsaurus WRX > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 15:28

that will be next spring. i’ll be replacing the front fender next, which apparently step one is disassemble everything from the taillights forward and then I will be tackling the airride. it started with a small leak in the drivers rear which has been getting worse and i think has now infected the drivers front as well. I think I need new struts in the rear, but i’m also wondering how my distribution box is.

Garrett Davis > OPPOsaurus WRX
10/04/2016 at 15:33

Ah, yeah I forgot you got bumped. Man that sucks...

I know there are rebuild kits for the compressors, I wonder if there is something similar for the distribution boxes as well

Garrett Davis > SantaRita
10/04/2016 at 15:36

Hmm. I’ll see if they have the bigger one there, just for peace of mind it might be worth it.

Garrett Davis > Needmoargarage
10/04/2016 at 15:37

Good to know.

SantaRita > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 15:44

Regarding the bump stops...maybe better to just convert to conventional struts? They make ebay coilover kits for cheap but the known quality stuff is 3 times the cost of your bump stops....but blowing airbags or a pump goes out ...and you aren’t far off of the money anymore.

Garrett Davis > SantaRita
10/04/2016 at 15:47

The problem there is that I haven’t been able to find a kit that will put the suspension up where I need it. There are a few kits that can be adjusted to the air suspension equivalent of level 3 or a bit higher, but none that I know of can adjust up to where my modified level 4 height is.

I’m not super worried about the bags, as I have a line on some very cheap OEM replacements (like, under $100 each). So for now, the air suspension is staying.

SantaRita > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 16:03

Call first, mine had a floor model but none in a box which is why i skimped.

SantaRita > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 16:11

hard to beat stock setup if it wont leave the wheel stuck in the wells since the cheaper base Avant stuff is definitely way too low for you... obviously you are VCDS friendly already.

Garrett Davis > SantaRita
10/04/2016 at 16:13

I was exploring the possibility of coils + spacers, but with the amount I’d need... eh, just sketchy.

In the middle of hacking together a cheap VCDS setup now with my laptop. I’ve got the cable on order, the rest is just software. Apparently it’s not too terribly difficult to get running.

SantaRita > Garrett Davis
10/04/2016 at 16:29

nah the only hangup with VCDS is making sure you can set the cable to the right com channel. VCDS is a well worn path which is far below your pay grade given you have a 2.7T to deal with. Youll be fast friends.

Garrett Davis > SantaRita
10/04/2016 at 16:32

True, that’s one thing I definitely have going for me. The 2.7 bi-turbo is a very well explored engine with tons of info and aftermarket support. Very glad for that.