This seems a popular pastime for Transporter owners, finding a suitable and sensibly priced Transporter engine is getting quite difficult so people turn to alternative means to replace their worn out engine.

There's quite a choice of engines with the Passat 1.6 turbo Diesel being the most popular as there's a few of them about in normal scrap yards and normal prices are charged accordingly rather than the inflated 'VW Scene' prices that most of the traders seem to charge, but there's all sorts of engines that can be made to fit without too much work and a little know how.

The engines share the same block, that's the early 1.5l Diesels of the MK I Golf right up to the 1.9l TDI 's of the MKIV Golf.

Here follows a list of possible candidates.

The above list is not exhaustive, just a guide.

Choosing an engine, well its all down to what's available, normally engine blows which leaves you without transport so sourcing an engine is a matter of urgency so choice is often down to what's readily available at the time and not usually ideally what you would like. If you are starting out with a Diesel T3 then you are sorted for parts, you have most of the things you will need for the conversion,

What's involved in converting a Diesel T3 - Type25 to an alternative engine?

The Diesel engine is laid at a 50° angle as opposed to the 15° angle that its normally mounted at in a golf etc., this means that the sump and oil pick up pipe must be swapped for T3 ones, if you don't then the oil pump won't pick up oil and you'll ruin your engine.

Water pipes fit where they do on a T3, TDi's can be a pain one one of the plastic water housings on the head is very close to injection pump. Outlet from thermostat housing to be swapped for T3 one, it has a different angle on it.

Pulleys etc. Again, the engine is the same underneath all the covers so if your engine comes without an alternator then they can be swapped from your old Diesel engine to your new one, the mounting bracket that bolts over the water pump may have to be swapped.

Crank needle bearing, spigot shaft bearing, flywheel bearing, what ever you want to call it is needed, T3's have them, golfs etc. don't due to their backwards flywheel arrangement. The small needle bearing fits snugly in the end of the crankshaft and when the engine is mated up to the gearbox the spigot shaft locates into it, without it, well I don't know, I suppose the unsupported shaft will flail about and possible wreck the gearbox bearings and cause problems with the clutch, they cost about 5 GBP2004 so its not worth skimping.

Engine mountings. If your fitting a plain Diesel, you have no problems, use the Transporter exhaust manifolds and you should be able to use the original exhaust. If your fitting a turbo Diesel then its recommend that you use the original Transporter turbo an exhaust manifold as it clears the left hand engine mounting, using a turbo manifold that isn't from a T3 won't clear the engine mounting and a new left engine mounting will have to be made. The right hand engine mounting is the same.
Some TDi s need a spacer between the block and the left hand mounting as the block is a slightly different shape.

Clutch,The standard Transporter Diesel clutch is 215mm in diameter and is adequate if your swapping for an engine of similar output, but if your going for a power hike ( TDi or tuned AAZ) then your going to need something a bit beefier, now, some German sites with furnish you with a clutch to do it for around 150 GBP2004, this is a 228mm clutch, the 2.1 petrol fuel injection came with a 228mm clutch as do loads of other cars! the splines are '24' .

Dipstick. The original dipstick of your upgraded engine is now useless due to the angle that you have now put your engine. The way around this is to fit your old dipstick from your original Diesel T3 engine. The dipstick will fit straight in with no machining necessary, all that should be needed is a fresh O ring seal. You will now find that if you try to use the dipstick to set your oil level that it will take over 5 litres of oil to achieve the maximum level, this is too much and your engine will smoke, the way around this is to fit a new oil filter, fill the engine with 4.5 litres of oil and run the engine, turn it off and read the level of oil on the dipstick. This level is now your maximum mark so use a sharp chisel (carefully!) or a punch and make a new mark for your new engine oil level.

Notes on fitting a Diesel engine to a petrol engined van.

Your going to have to source engine mountings, a Diesel bell housing and spigot shaft, the bellhousing is a different shape and the Diesel spigot shaft is longer. All the coolant hoses, exhaust system, and some way of operating the glow plugs. Basically you need everything out of a Diesel engine bay, pipes, cables, and some wiring, not impossible, just more work.

Bigger engines and more power (1.9l)

The easiest way to more power is the AAZ 1.9l Turbo Diesel giving 75 hp, this engine will fit in the engine bay really well and can be tuned quite easily to around 100 bhp with some adjustments to the injection pump, boost pressure and the fitment of an oil cooler and intercooler.

Fitting a TDI (1Z/AHU/AFN) is again mechanically quite easy its just the slight problem that the engines are designed to run electronically and have no throttle cable, there's 2 ways around this, either make sure you get all the electronics with the engine, i.e. ALL the sensors, the ECU, the ignition key the pedal box, well basically you want the front portion of the car! its imperative you get the ignition key that came with the car as it has a transponder in it which is coded to the ECU, no key, your ECU's not going to work OR you have a hybrid mechanical injection pump built, at a cost of 300 to 1500 GBP2004 then its not cheap.

If you fit a different engine then you will have to make new oil return line from the turbo to the sump, these can be inexpensive to have fabricated in braided stainless steel hose. Some engines have the oil return going into the engine block rather than the sump as on the T3, once the engine is on its side as in the Transporter then the oil return on the sump must be used (hence different longer oil return line), This leaves you with a gaping hole in the rear of the block where the banjo bolt of the old oil return line once was.
Brickwerks can furnish you with a AAZ/TDI kit consisting of a block bung to fill the hole, a oil return pipe and a spigot shaft bearing

Notes for turbo engines.

Fitting a turbo engine, one thing you have to watch out for is that the top of the injection pump is different to that of a injection pump from a T3, because of the limited height of the T3 engine bay the boost pressure actuator diaphragm is laid on its side, so you can cure this 2 ways, physically make sure it doesn't interfere by moving the actuator away from the engine lid by moving the engine downwards (not recommended!), cutting a hole in your engine lid for it to clear, again not the ideal solution as in most cases the engine lid is part of the bed and it could get un comfortable or another method is swapping the injection pump tops from that of a 1.6 TD T3 engine (JX) and swapping the injector pipes too. Please note that the correct pump top should really be kept with the pump contrary to what I have said in the past, the upright pump top has more adjustment in the governor, hence its better suited to tuning as the advance curve can be modified.

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