lol, Gary, it was only 38 yesterday and still felt warmer, i think its because there is no sun out today.

v944god, as Cory said i work with machinery onboard ships. Boilers, big diesels, steam and gas turbines, generators, freshwater makers..you name it. I wont go as far to say everything transfers over to working on cars but it helps to be able to think mechanically.

I thawed out and spent another hour outside. I managed to get the brake booster heatshield back in and the dreaded intercooler.

It took me a minute to figure out how to get the heatshield back in, but once i realized you can literally slide it right in from the front, it went in very easily. It pays to be a skinny guy when trying to get the nut on the rear stud for the heatshield.. :).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6813.jpg

It took another minute to figure out the best way to get the intercooler with plastic shroud in place. What worked well for me was putting the passenger side in first, then basically forcing in the drivers side. The shroud gets pretty bent up during this process but its surprisingly elastic and did not crack. I replaced the foam seal on the perimeter of the core. I had double sided adhesive weather stripping, so i just put blue tape on the other side of the adhesive so it didnt stick to everything.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6815.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6816.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6817.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6818.jpg

I have a bunch of exams the rest of the week so i wont be able to finish this until this weekend at the earliest. Im pretty sure this is what i have left to do..

-Reinstall alternator and drill required holes in plastic cowl for new battery cables and headlight harness
-Finish routing of new battery cables and headlight harness
-Install SFR coolant expansion tank
-Reinstall turbo waterpump and hoses
-Reinstall turbo thermostat water pipe
-Install turbo oil feed line
-Reinstall intake manfiold
-Reinstall fuel rail
-Figure out how to hook up the vacuum lines again
-Reinstall MAF and j-pipe ... and figure out any dreaded fitment issues due to the new turbo
-Reinstall nose panel

Jon, did you finish it today, you could have wrapped the camera in clear plastic and cut out for the lens :)

Great thread.

Gary, doing my engine license tests this week. Im on day 2 of 4, 3 more tests to go. Studying my ass off. With the current weather outlook and the fact classes start next week, i dont think anything is going to get done until next weekend.

Yes thanks for documenting this, While I am only attempting to repair a damaged Turbo your posts here have helped me alot in how to do it.

I am finally finished with my exams this week (i am officially a USCG licensed 3rd assistant engineer!) so i decided to try and get a little done on the car. It was brutally cold out so i only put in about two hours. My first order of business was to get the alternator back in which took forever. Despite smoothing out the mounting ears of the alternator with Emory cloth, it still took quite a bit of force to get the alternator to slip in between the mounting bracket. I had to use liberal force with a hammer and a 2x4 as a standoff to get the alternator to seat right. What took the longest was getting the top long mounting bolt in through the mounting ears and the mounting bracket. That is a damn nightmare with the tight constraints on the front end, mostly due to the coolant crossover pipe and the upper radiator hose location.

Finally i got the alternator in and tightened up. Slowly but surely its coming back together. Eventually i am going to go with that Nissan Quest alternator mod, but its just not in the budget right now.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...o/IMG_6819.jpg

And here is the routing of the battery cable (left) and headlight cable (right) to the alternator output. Also you can see my slightly modified cooling shroud, this should make the much needed clearance to fit the MAF j-pipe a little easier. I still need to secure all the wiring, but that needs to wait until i install the heatshield for the balance shaft cover, which requires hooking up the oil feed line.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...o/IMG_6820.jpg

The weather is going to be pretty bad this weekend (very cold and lots of snow) so im not sure when ill be able to get anymore work done. Next week is supposed to be brutally cold with highs in the low 20's...so i doubt the snow is going to melt anytime soon!.

I couldnt resist doing some more work today. Its 30* out and around 20* with the windchill... yea i froze my ass off today :).

Im still working on finishing the routing of the headlight wiring but pretty much have it figured out for the most part. I just need to zip tie a few things and will be done with that. I put the SFR expansion tank in and was very happy with the fitment. The only complaint i have is the fitting on the back which connects the tank to the radiator is in a really tight spot, inbetween the strut tower and the a/c hardlines. I think if it were placed on the side of the tank it would make life a little easier, but nothing too serious. I think my case may have been worse because i have the fittings for the LR steam vent to deal with also, which make it a little difficult to fit the hose around the a/c hardlines. I wouldnt worry about this or keep me from buying another one of these.

One of the real nice things is there is a slight gap inbetween the expansion tank and the wheel well.. so i was able to slip the extra length of wiring from the headlight harness right under the tank. I love when stuff like that works out.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6823.jpg

The bracket for the ignition module on 16v cars came in handy for the relay mounting.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6822.jpg

I had a brief 'oh crap' moment when i realized you cannot thread the banjo bolt in for the coolant pipe on the turbo with the front intake manifold support in place. I had to loosen the bolt that holds that bracket (also for the a/c and alternator bracket) to slide the intake bracket out. Its in a really tight spot, luckily my flex head GearWrench fit barely around the compressor discharge so i could loosen that bolt. There was no way in hell i was going to take the turbo out again! Both of the water fittings for the turbo are on, but not tightened yet. I need to do a mock fitting of the coolant lines before i tighten everything down. Maybe tomorrow..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6824.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6821.jpg

And yes that is snow on the ground.

One thing ive been realizing about not having a deadline is im much more confident with my work. Because im only doing two or three things per day its easy for me to remember what i need to double check prior to finishing up for the day.

I managed to get all the new coolant hoses and pipes installed and tightened down including the turbo water pump.

I also hooked up the oil feed line today, the line goes back towards the firewall, wraps over the brake booster and ends up by the diagnotstic plug, where the filter sits. Then it wraps around the strut tower to the turbo inlet.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6829.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6831.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6830.jpg

I also finally got the MAF hooked back up. Installing was much easier than the last time i did this because i modified the alternator cooling shroud a little. Its still a little bit of a tight fit, but what i ground off the shroud made all the difference.

Last look at the compressor before the j-pipe goes back on..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6825.jpg

Here you can see the slightly modified shroud and the raised area i ground off. Also you can see the ground down compressor housing allowing for clearance of the coolant waterpipe. no need to bend or add spacers for it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6826.jpg

The SFR coolant tank also made life alot easier with hooking up the j-pipe because there is much more space to work now. Also there is ALOT more room between the tank and where the bypass valve ends up, so i should be able to finally get the fitment of that 'perfect' as opposed to the way i used to have it with the line kinked slightly.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6828.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6827.jpg

Is that some sort of a heat shield over the air filter?

Just a cover so water doesn't drain directly onto the filter. When i wash the car the water rolls right off the hood onto the filter, i can only imagine what its like when i have the headlights up driving in the rain.

AH! Good idea.

I spent the better part of 4 and a half hours getting the intake manifold on today. Things went smoothly up until i test fitted the intake. More on that later.

I started the day intent on getting the intake manifold on. I finished all the hose / wire routing under the intake aswell as hooked the catch can back up.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6833.jpg

I was now ready to test fit the intake, which unveiled three problems which i needed to sort out. First off, the rear intake manifold support was too far forward so the bolts would not line up. This was sort of expected as i had removed all of that stuff when the downpipe came out. This required loosening the infamous downpipe bolt, which honestly isnt really all that bad. Getting the flex socket seated on the head of the bolt can be a pain, but its really not too bad..i think ive dealt with worse on these cars. I sorted that out pretty quickly. Now came the most time consuming issue. The way i had the oil feed line routed was causing it to interfere with the throttle cam when at anything more than 1/2 open throttle. I routed the line similar to how it was done on the LR webpage, but realized i could not do it the same way because my car still has the turbo cooling water pump, which causes the line to loop up higher. I had to rethink the routing and decided to go with my original plan B, which was going right through the brake booster heat shield. I drilled a hole through the heat shield and squared it off using a dremel. I admit the hole i cut is a little sloppy, but frankly i dont really care.. =).

You can see here that the oil feed line routing is still a little sloppy, i need to pickup one of those wire clamps so i can tie the feed line to the strut tower.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6835.jpg

The only other issue was the water pump for the turbo which sits very close to the throttle cam in the stop position. I had to do a little tweaking of the bracket and pushing the pump downwards a little in the clamp in order to secure it. Nothing too hard to figure out.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6837.jpg

And with that, the intake manifold finally bolted down.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6836.jpg

Talk about some tight clearances under the throttle body, amazing it all fits.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6838.jpg

Notice how the pictures went from daytime to darkness.. you can get an idea how long i was out there for.. =).

So whats left to do..

-Reinstall injectors and fuel rail
-Reroute all vacuum lines
-Reinstall hard pipes
-Reinstall bypass valve
-Tension alternator belt
-Add coolant
-Fire it up..

Im looking at sub 20 degree weather the rest of the week, hopefully ill be able to fire her up sometime next week.

Looking good Jon! You will love the turbo...Even with my crappy tune it just pulls so hard. I can't wait until I get a vitesse MAF to go with mine and see how it really is :)

Looking good! I'm in the process of swapping my turbo right now, I've got almost everything taken apart.

Do you have the part numbers for the air-oil seperator seals? I might as well do that while I'm in there...

Here are the part #'s for the two o-rings.

999-701-613-40
999-701-661-40

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It snowed a little this morning, but we are practically having a heat wave with highs of 33 degrees.. thats twice as warm as it was the last 5 days :).

I basically completed the reassembly. The fuel rail and hardpipes all went on without much drama. Getting the couplings off the hardpipes during the disassembley phase was a major pain in the ass, but installation is easier by spraying a little WD40 on the inside of the couplers.

The bypass valve fitment is a little better thanks to the extra space from the SFR expansion tank. Im finally pretty happy with the fitment of it.

The only annoying thing i needed to deal with was putting the bolt for the dipstick tube back in. I forgot i had neglected to put it back in..took me about 10 minutes to get that one back in.

Eventually ill replace the worm drive hose clamps for the intercooler pipes, but i havent run into any problems with them yet and i only run 15lbs usually. Ill eventually replace everything with t-bolt clamps for assurance when it gets warmer out.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6840.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...t/IMG_6839.jpg

Basically all i need to do is retension the alternator belt, add coolant and put the nose panel back on. I am planning on firing it up probably thursday afternoon because its supposed to be sunny and in the upper 30's. I figure the best day to start it up and check everything over...and maybe take it around the block :).