Tristar Syncro, 2WD to 4WD, more BHP!!

i had better check my pair is left and right.... they are tucked away waiting for a bright day when ive got some time. and a grinder handy to cut the spot welds of the pannels in my crew cab..

It belongs to Shaun S.  Everyone thought he was crazy to convert it, but it really just makes sense. 

I'm surprised to hear there were only 19? Tristars delivered to the UK.

That's quite an elite group. Very similar to the Canadian group.  There's a rumour that one of the Canadian Tristars was pushed off the transport ship!  I'm still trying to find out if this indeed really did happen though.

Has anyone figured out how many were delivered to Sweden?  It seems 99% of them are coming from there.

Eric

Nice Tristar!  great work so far. 

I think you might have an easier time getting a NA 2.2 or a 2.5 subie in there than that twin turbo.   On a syncro, not only is the tank in the way, the clutch slave is also a bit of trouble.

BTW, one of those RHD Tristars made it to the states. It belongs to a friend of mine. He converted it to LHD! 

The brackets sit in the way of the holes which are needed to bolt in a 2WD gearbox.

I've bought myself a Christmas bargain . Thing is I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet...

MG

Hmmm the jury is out on the which engine to fit. For the moment it runs, albeit slower than it should be. I can't afford to take it off the road (make it yet another project!) as it's my only running vehicle.

In the mean time, I spent yesterday and today sorting out the protection bars and mountings.

The Tristar has been missing all of the underbody protection bars and front bash plate since I bought it. I have a spare wheel carrier bash plate waiting for me in Germany but the rest of the parts I had ready to fit... but there was a set of brackets missing. CJ supplied the chassis cross member with the brackets on.

I drilled carefully through the large diameter welds to remove the brackets, then cleaned them up and concentrated on where they had to go.

Here are all the parts laid out on the floor including gear-rod tube.

The chassis leg has a few bits of metal missing from when the brackets were removed.

I removed the gear shift rod completely as the tube won't go over the gearbox end.

A bit of cleaning up with a dremel (couldn't get the grinder in!)

All ready for welding.

I loosely fitted up the engine protection cage, propshaft bars and cross piece and bolted them all together including the brackets.

With everything in a happy position, I tack welded the brackets onto the chassis leg, removed all the bars again and fully welded the brackets on. A bit of zinc primer followed by Tectyl underseal and everything was bolted back up.

A new gear coupling boot was fitted to keep all the crap out, especially when offroading.

All finished and ready for some offroading on the 30th!

MG

dump the 2.1 and fit the 5 pot !! there was a green panel van in hanover with a 20 valve fitted in it and it went like f**k  !  

it sounded mint on the rev limiter  ,and when it was dumping ! 

Gee the support here is overwhelming

Ok onwards and upwards. This has been a shit year for me but hey, life goes on and I'll not be dragged down!

First the good news, the cross member arrived from Syncrospares, thanks CJ. I hope you get Cat's van sorted soon and have a chilled out Christmas time mate. Merry Christmas to the whole family.

I got the spare engine on the engine stand started stripping it down to check out just how bad it was. I bought this from Charile as a known problem engine for it's injector system and loom. Ever since it arrived, there has been emulisfied oil coming out of both the oil system and the water system.. not good!

The extent of the head gasket leak became apparent the further I got into it.

Everything and I mean EVERYTHING is covered in this 'orrible oozing gunk! When I first removed the sump plug, nothing happened for a few seconds, then it started dribbling out. That's how thick it is!

Finally I got the case halves split and.....

EEEeeeewwwwwww

I lifted the crank out, removed the rods and pressed the timing gear, spacer and dizzy drive off the end of the crank.

I'd say it's been running like this for a while and knocking. This is the rod journal from No.1 Cylinder. All the other rod bearings had picked up but this was the worst.

No.1 and No.3 main bearings has picked up some shrapnel but weren't bad. Both No.1 cam bearings are into the bronze material. The pistons and cylinders don't look that bad but until I clean everything off and do some measuring it's not really possible to say. The same goes for the crank. I expect No.1 rod bearing will be low but there's no scoring on it.

Cylinder No.4 inner top stud had snapped at the top so if I can get the stud to come of the case, then it's savable.

The question comes as to once I've measured everything and added up how much all the parts for the spare DJ, will that cost more than fitting this Audi S6 2.2 20V 5 Cylinder Turbo engine have sitting here...

I have the majority of the parts I need to fit it, bellhousing, engine mounting bar, clutch and flywheel (needs timing ring fitting for crank sensors), water pipes, loom and ECU and Pace Charge cooler.

Hmmmm...

MG

Never have figured out why there are so many calculations to cheat on dynos.  "Now your van is putting putting out out 55hp on rolling dyno, but if we adjust for elevation, transmission drag, shoe color, kind of exhaust, hair color, etc. it's really 100hp."

K, so engine definately needs more oats to get horses going.