The Other Diesel

[opeterson]

I had a great weekend. Drove 150 miles to the beach, found a spot with no one around, camped out in the sand, woke up and made a wonderful breakfast. And I didn't worry about getting stuck or making the car dirty. Hell, this is what it was designed for!





So yeah, I had a lot of fun. But we're all TurboBrickers at heart and that means nothing comes easily. You know, we buy a beat up car, slap some parts on it, get a little dirty in the process, and end up with... a much nicer and cleaner TurboBrick. But there's always the odd case. Sometimes we go a little too far. Like the beach car that started as a $100 parts car...





And then there was this $200 diesel parts car with 130k on the clock and a blown autotragic. Such as it is, this project was born. Swap the diesel mill into the wagon body, throw on a tight suspension, and get rid of everything not absolutely needed. Back to basics. I might say, "if there is less there to begin with then there is less to break." And to boot, earplugs are lighter than sound deadening.

She's a 1985 760 Turbo wagon with a factory M46 and Canadian as well! Also, she's the 351'st 7-series wagon ever made. It's trivia, that's all, but the climate controls were in metric and there were 295k on the clock.

I stripped her out and scrubbed her with a toothbrush


Added some super grippy seats from an early 90's Celica GT


Got her rolling on her own wheels


Started re-wiring...


...and re-wiring...


...and re-wiring (where she stands now)


Changed out the fuel tank and lines because the 1985 tank was steel and was completely rusty and nasty. This tank clean and is plastic out of a 1989 sedan.


Diesel's don't need a high pressure pump, so it was deleted and steel line was put in place


Working on her in the garage


Installed an engine. Oh, wait. That was just for a tease This is a diesel, remember? It's not supposed to have a Supra Turbo mill under the hood.


Here's the engine. Just a plane jane D24T. It also got the toothbrush treatment.


New timing belt on the front and the rear


A new clutch and pressure plate


And an M47 from a 240. I was too tired of the damned British Laycock and dinky little shifter button.


By the way, the shifter forks from a '78 240 M46 fitted up just dandy to the rear of the M47. They are also perfect length. The driveshaft however was a lucky score off of the For Sale section.


The view from down under. Crossmember is from a M46.


I don't have pictures of the straight through exhaust with a cherry bomb at the end. Nor do I have pictures of the Bilstein HD's in the front or the 25mm IPD swaybars in front and back. The front springs were cut one coil (they were stock turbo springs I think) and the rear were snagged from a 240 wagon. I cut the rears too short however and now there's need for a set of stock length 245 springs. Please send me a set, I'll pay shipping and beer.

In the back there are two deep cycle batteries. The diesel engine requires about 350 amps to crank over and these guys never struggle.


Little bit of rust repair in the back.


Had a little trouble with fuel leaks so I re-sealed the injection pump a couple times. There are all kinds of springs and levers and wizmos inside these pumps! It's like working with a carburetor. Tuning is accomplished with a screwdriver and a wrench. Funny stuff, no? I sorta miss pulling out the laptop, firing up MegaSquirt'n'Spark and clicking my way to a better tune.





Here we are at the local autocross. What a lot of fun! I'd never driven this car hard before and wasn't expecting much response. Guess what, it feels just like a B230FT from 3,000 to 5,000 RPM. Tail happy and a little turbo lag but much more fun then you would expect from 108 rated horsepower. The steering by the way is very responsive and make it easy to catch. We even got written up in a local autocross blog http://racingready.com/2008/10/page/2/



So there's more to come but like all things it will be slow and steady. I've been working on this particular project for about two and a half years and expect to keep it for a while longer

[Tamnakz]

Simply beautiful man! Is your wiring completely custom, or did you re-use any of the old harness?

[opeterson]

Originally Posted by Tamnakz

Simply beautiful man! Is your wiring completely custom, or did you re-use any of the old harness?

The front and rear harnesses are factory but I did away with all of the under-dash wiring. I never felt right about wiring bundles two or three inches in diameter. It's a mess right now, but at least it is traceable.

[745 TurboGreasel]

Always good to see another D24 on the road! A ball and spring MBC, even set at stock boost does wonders for the dead spot from 2500-3000 RPM.
Did you paint the cam gear? I've only seen them in black oxide.

[Ruben]

I've always liked diesels, don't know why.
MPG with this thing?

[VQ]

Awesome car there, love the work done!

[John242Ti]

Heh, nice. I like how it's kind of a combination of 240 and 700 on the interior...

-J

[PRVersion]

what interior?

awesome car! i've been putting off my interior wiring nest project, too...

[opeterson]

Originally Posted by 745 TurboGreasel

Always good to see another D24 on the road! A ball and spring MBC, even set at stock boost does wonders for the dead spot from 2500-3000 RPM.
Did you paint the cam gear? I've only seen them in black oxide.

Cam gear is original color in all it's anodized glory.

This weekend I hooked up a vacuum line from the intake manifold to the stock 3-color boost gauge and holly smokes I think I've been hitting 20psi!!! At about 3000RPM the boost sits nicely at 12 psi but at full throttle and 4500RPM the gauge hits the end of the red. No wonder the engine feels like it's coming alive at high rpm! Has anybody else encountered this with the D24T? Do I need to port my waste gate? (The car has a straight through exhaust.) Time for an intercooler...

[RacingReadyDan]

I wrote up Owen's turbobrick here - it was a unique autocross entry.

Here's a shot of his Volvo on grid:


It just goes to show you that anybody & anything can compete in an autocross. Here's another interesting blog entry of the variety of cars that participate in autocross & a picture of one of the custom one-off vehicles:


And one more custom built one-off, the Hammond!


Enjoy the blog & see you out there!

[DecalServiceBrett]

hey dan, where in SA town abouts are ya?

[cuaz64]

Nice project, any updates?