1983 Volkswagen Rabbit

Pickup Truck

1.9 tdi turbo diesel direct injection, intercooled

Manual

1V1KG0172DV042648

Clear

diesel/biodiesel/grease

Up for bid is my 1983 vw rabbit pickup. The truck has been repowered with a 1997 vw tdi, from a passat, it is both turbocharged and intercooled. The truck also has a complete separate fuel system that is heated, details below. There is a lot to cover here so I’m going to try to go about it in a somewhat chronological order; I bought the truck in 2007, it started life as a normally aspirated 1.6 diesel, I drove it this way for a little over a year adding a homemade grease kit to the vehicle. The kit starts with a heated 15 gallon tank under the bed ,(not taking up bed space) the tank was built by professionals and has baffles, heating loops, provisions for a fuel gauge, as well as other expanded use potential. From the tank, the fuel (veg oil) ran forward through heated lines to a separate heated fuel filter, up to a flat plate heat exchanger before going through a pair of electric solenoids (greaseworks) to be sent to the fuel injection pump or looped back through the exchanger to be reheated. In this way, even if the system has a leak or plugged filter, you can switch it off and run the factory fuel system. I ran straight grease through this system and the original 1.6 diesel for about a year before switching to only biodiesel, which I had been making for my other truck , a ford power stroke. I felt sooner or later I would forget to purge the grease system and running just the biodiesel eliminated that chance, plus I felt it burnt cleaner. All fuel lines are either Viton or steel. This system has been completely trouble free in close to 100,000 miles now. After a year of doing my best to reach the speed limit while wearing earplugs,,,, I decided that I was going to try the TDI swap. Everything from the Passat was brought over to the rabbit in the swap. While the engine was out on the garage floor all seals, belts, hoses, starter and the water pump were replaced. The intake was cleaned, egr valve removed and a custom intercooler piping was fabricated to suit the front mounted intercooler. The engine and transmission were mounted using WRD mounts and a cable clutch conversion from MJM autohaus . I didn’t want any transmission trouble later on if I decided to add more power, so the stock 020 transmission was dumped in favor of the stronger o2A five speed, cable shift transmission from the Passat. New Cv axles and joints were installed at the time of swap. A custom two inch aluminized exhaust was used. There is literally three pages of items involved to this swap so I’ can’t list them all here. Essentially, anything I thought may give me grief in the future was replaced during the swap. The swap was performed when the truck had just turned 200,000 miles.(I have the old instrument cluster, you can have it) Part of keeping all the factory ecu controls was a requirement to use the Passat instrument panel/speedometer, so the rabbit now has a Passat instrument and pedal cluster. At the time of the swap the donor car had 97,000 miles on it, right now the new engine/transmission /etc has 165,000 miles on it which will continue to count up as it is my daily driver. In the last 50,000 miles or less I have changed the following; New brakes New rear drums New heavy duty complete front struts New heavy duty rear leaf springs New VR6 clutch conversion Emergency break cables New Brake booster New brake master cylinder Ball joints A arms and bushings Rocketchip stage two ecu chip New floor pans Fresh paint . The swap has been amazingly trouble free, I have put more than 65,000 miles on the truck since and it is far better in every way. It routinely gets better than 50 mpg, is capable of running well over 100mph and never runs hot or hesitates to start. The tdi is so much quieter than the old 1.6 was and the cable shift doesn’t have the annoying play the old shifters get. Hills I used to go up in third gear at max rpm are now done at a low purr in overdrive. The truck has a sliding rear window and comes with a nice white matching cap; I also have some new fenders I bought for it that will go with it. (The ones on it now are new, I just got a deal on 4 of them) I never ran the tdi on straight grease , only on biodiesel and diesel. The oil has always been changed at 4000 mile intervals. I have since found myself to short on time to make the biodiesel and have been running only diesel in it. From the photos you can see there has been other changes like the steering wheel etc..the two white switches mounted into the center panel are for the aux fuel system. The truck has been garage kept both at my home and work and as a result is very solid, the strut towers and inner fender wells are perfect, It only has a very small amount of rust on the bed floor, I routinely haul my 600 pound motorcycle in the bed so I wouldn’t give that a second thought, also in one of the photos you will see a small hole I made through the bed floor to fill the aux fuel tank through. There is also a trailer lights plug on the rear bumper. Portable xm radio does not go with the sale. This little truck is fun to drive! I'd prefer not to ship this item but I will work with the winning bidder if you set up all the arrangements to ship.On Jul-06-12 at 11:51:26 PDT, seller added the following information: Please note if you have a feedback score less than 7, you will need to contact me or I will block your bid, sorry for the inconvenience, but I’ve been scammed before.