Super easy 16v serpentine belt swap

[mk1mark at gmail.com (Mark F.)]

** Warning **  - Actual Scirocco content!  Some of you may want to skip this...

Hey list,

My recent mini-project has been swapping a 16v engine into my 82
winter beater.  The donor setup included power steering and A/C,
neither of which I'm running in the 82.  Since 16v no a/c setups are
pretty much non-existent I decided to solve the problem with an
upgrade to a serpentine belt setup.  Some list and vortex searching
revealed a couple different ways people were doing it.  One involves
buying an an ABF setup (good deal on this very sweet setup here:
<http://forums.vwvortex.com/zerothread?id=3494634>), and another
involved sourcing the pulleys and brackets from ABA and VR6 engines
and getting the crank pulley machined 6mm to fit.

I was checking out the serp. setup on my 1Z TDI engine and realized
that the TDI and 16v timing belts were both wide, leading me to
believe that it should be a straight swap to a 16v.  I happen to have
a spare TDI alternator bracket, and alternator (thanks Earl!), so I
pillaged the pulleys from the TDI (have another set lined up already
to replace them) and set to work.  Here's the result:

<http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc187/mk_1_mk/16v_serpentine_setup.jpg>

The pulleys line up perfectly!  A direct swap...  The lower plastic
timing belt cover had to be clearanced a bit with a knife (the crank
pulley hole needed to be enlarged), and some minor surgery of the
alternator bracket was required to clear one of the water pump bolts.
As with the ABA alternator bracket swap only three of the four bolts
are used to hold it down.  Here's a pic of the bracket, showing where
I had to grind some aluminum to clear the top right water pump bolt:

<http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc187/mk_1_mk/modified_bracket.jpg>

The TDI setup uses a bolt/stud arrangement for the top left water pump
bolt, but Earl let me down a bit by not providing one.  Unphased, he
did have an 8mm x 1.25 stud and two nuts, and I was about to recreate
the TDI stud/bolt when I figured there'd be no harm in setting the
bracket directly on the water pump and just use a longer bolt to cinch
it all down.  The bracket sits at a slightly different angle as a
result (tilted a bit closer towards the engine), but that'll help with
any possible alternator/radiator clearance issues anyways.  I don't
believe the slightly off mating surfaces will be a problem, but I
added some blue loctite to the three bolts for insurance.

Tomorrow I swap fifth gear covers because of this:

<http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc187/mk_1_mk/My_freakin_ears.jpg>

... and then the actual swap begins.  I'm going to run the stock 82
CIS system and graft in the 16v knock sensing ignition and see if I'll
be happy with that.  Hopefully it won't run too lean at higher revs.

Later,

Mark.
75
82 16v engine going in this week
82 Caddy - mTDI swap in progress, but on the backburner this month
91 Jetta Coupe - off the road for the winter soon