starting my diesel swap, 4cyl MB diesel engine into 89 Astro

[astrozam]

Very interesting project tinworm, great pics ...thanks for sharing this with the ASV community.

[mdmead]

Wow, loving the detail!

Are you losing one of the clamping points on the exhaust manifold after lopping off the 5th exhaust runner? If so, is this going to be a problem, or do you have another solution?

[LiftedAWDAstro]

awesome build!!!

[HPbyStan]

Wow, loving the detail!

Are you losing one of the clamping points on the exhaust manifold after lopping off the 5th exhaust runner? If so, is this going to be a problem, or do you have another solution?

Check out the last pic on the 1st page. I had wondered about that early on as well.

[doyoulikeithere]

Nice job Tin Worm.
Glad you found our little corner of the world!
Welcome Aboard...
Looks like the finished manifold is clamped pretty good....

[mdmead]

Check out the last pic on the 1st page. I had wondered about that early on as well.

Ah, I completely missed that! Thanks Stan!

[HPbyStan]

Any updates on this interesting project ??

[tinworm]

sorry about that. No updates recently because to make a long story short, waiting for code circus at work area to be done. The van is in the back of my business facility, which is a new building, supposedly fully inspected with a CO (certificate of occupancy) all set. Guess some guy over at the zoning department was taking kickbacks, so they threw him in jail, and are now reinspecting all buildings done in the last two years.

Ive had code inspectors in here on a weekly basis for the last couple weeks, had to hide torch, fluids, welder, ect. Once I have that dam CO, I should be good and can continue with no fear of being fined having my van in here all apart. Building owner needs a CO and i need a CO, and so on, so something like 20 different inspections since its doubled.
Already failed something related to the lift, guy wants some kind of emergency shut off on the lift itself, which ive never seen, but oh well.

Aside from that, have a great idea on the steering issue! guy over on the other astro forum gave it to me. Instead of modifying the whole stock steering, he asked, why not block the engine off the subframe so it clears the steering, then do a body lift off the subframe to clear the engine. Super simple concept, all I need to do is extend the steering shaft to connect with the gearbox!

(have to replace my rear leaf springs anyway, so later on after I get it together, might do an equal lift in the rear. Are there body lift kits for these vans? I see all the 4x4 versions, wonder if something already aftermarket exists

[LiftedAWDAstro]

The body lifts are the same for all Astro and Safari vans. Once you lift the front, you will need to lift the rear to match. I recommend doing an add-a-leaf for the rear as long as you have steel leafs.

[tinworm]

The body lifts are the same for all Astro and Safari vans. Once you lift the front, you will need to lift the rear to match. I recommend doing an add-a-leaf for the rear as long as you have steel leafs.

I have the old fiberglass in the rear, and ive been concerned about it for a while during various towing projects. Was going to get to upgrading to steel eventually, so I could ad in the lift down the line i guess.

glad to hear on the body lifts! As soon as I know the dimension, ill have to get my hands on some. close to having my code documents, so in the meantime, ive pulled apart the suspension and im sending off the lower and upper control arms, brake line brackets, bumper brace brackets, that mount rod thing for the upper control arm, and a bunch of other all metal bracketry off to be powdercoated.

The rust on the upper control arms seems to be a chronic astro/safari problem. Id hate to put them right back without trying to really eliminate the current corrosion

[tinworm]

couple pics of progress, here are the upper and lower control arms before drilling out the upper ball joints and pressing out the lower. Still had factory riveted upper ball joints in after 200k, which is pretty impressive considering how hard this van has been used. Also before driving out the control arm bushings, which was an amazing PITA. No wonder no one ever does it.

These will be sandblasted first, then refinished somehow, thats going to be based really on who gets it done in a timely fashion though. Powdercoat or paint and undercoat



here is the difference between the replacement and stock front springs. Shocks were wiped out completely. Im curious how these will feel with the additional coils and what looks like a little variable rate. It was the generic replacement off rock auto, so I was surprised on how different the spring looks. It also is a little thicker diameter.



Interesting difference between the 89 and 92 subframes, this bolt is quite a bit larger on the later subframe. (the modified one). The larger diameter correlates to larger holes in the pivot piece it attaches to. As you can see here, I drove out the 89 bolts to see if they would fit in the 92 subframe, but the hole I believe is too large. Fortunately I kept the 92 upper control arms, so I have that pivot piece, but its super rusty, the 89 pivot piece is in way better condition. I think my plan will be to drill out the earlier pivot piece hole a little to fit the larger bolt. Another issue is the shims from the 89 won't fit over this bolt either, so each one will have to be ground a bit to work.

89 on the left

[tinworm]

couple small setbacks, but maybe with a silver lining.

I had dropped off 4 upper control arms (off two vans) and one of the lower control arms so far to be sandblasted. Was still working on the extremely bad driver side lower control arm bushings off the 89.

Powdercoater called and said of the 4 uppers, he thinks only one is worth coating, so much rust flaked away that he thinks 3 at least are paper thin if I were to sandblast them all completely. He did a couple sample areas.

Meanwhile, in trying to press out one of the bushings on the lower control arm im still screwing with, the rust was bad enough that I managed to crunch the whole dam thing, splitting the entire area I was trying to press the bushing out of. Its ruined. Pic-



so, in the end, I have a passenger upper control arm, and a passenger lower control arm, out of 6 (actually 8, two lowers off parts van were scrapped, too rusty) originally.

Went on the internet, and discovered I can get brand new upper and lower control arms for about 100 bucks a pop, so gonna do that. Come with ball joints all installed

[HPbyStan]

That does sound like the best plan.

[tinworm]

some updates-

Received my new control arms, and ive reassembled the entire suspension with a lot of new parts.

I got the upper control arms from mevotech, and the ball joints were questionable, so I swapped them with moog, and lower control arms from dorman, which looked pretty good.

some pics of assembly-

new control arms-



using a ratchet strap and spring compressor to bring the control arms together to bolt in the knuckle-



assembled with steering and sway bar-



close up of steering in relation to the cutout on the subframe-



so now using that metal bar to establish a centerline, ive got some numbers to work with.
This is the principle issue. The diesel engine is a grand total of 27 inches tall, oil pan to valve cover, BUT, the valve cover itself is a whopping 6 inches tall, and needs that much clearance above in order to fully remove it and adjust the valves.



Measuring up, I have a ballpark measurement of about 24 inches from the subframe up to the top of the engine compartment, including about 1 inch of stock bushing. Below the centerline, I have about 5 inches of space before interfering with the steering apparatus.

So basically using the 5 inches as a locked in point to use the stock steering linkage, if I installed the engine with the stock subframe bushings, im looking at a total space allowance of 29 inches, and only 2 inches of clearance above, which would never work. The engine would fit, but I wouldn't be able to service it.
with a 2 inch lift, total space would be 31 inches, and 4 inches of clearance
3 inch lift, total space 32 inches and 5 inch clearance
4 inch lift, total space is 33 inches, and would give me the 6 inches above clearance.

So my plan now is to go with huge 4 inch subframe spacers, and compensate on ride height by possibly cutting down the springs by 2-3 inches or so to drop the van back down. This way I get a little bit of lift overall from the outside, but the larger dimension I need inside the engine compartment. what do you all think? It will be kind of weird, as ill be lowering the van at the same time as raising it, but theoretically, it should work. This leaves me with extending the steering shaft in some way as my principle remaining steering issue.

[mdmead]

What would converting to rack & pinion steering do for your clearance issues?