93 Explorer TDI Swap

[410Fortune]

They slimmed it way down over the years, the power junction box kept getting closer and closer to the firewall hahaha
Copper used to be cheap back in the 80s

Can bus has about 1/5 the wiring good show

All you will really need from under the hood will be all the lights, ac controls, hvac wiring and maybe some Evap stuff otherwise you will be building all new for the alternator charging and starter as well.
I start be stripping the power junction box down to the fuses and relays you plan to retain
Everything else Adios!!

 

[timtimtimajim]

I’ll follow your methodology of stripping the harness! Makes sense to me.

Cool part about the motor I bought is all of the VW side of the harness was built by the last owner. I don’t have much harness to build (aside from auxiliary stuff), it’s more just clean up and integrate the two!

 

[timtimtimajim]

Got the factory harness stripped down and cleaned up of everything I don’t need anymore. Really is amazing how many wires are in this thing. I did splice my auxiliary headlight relay harness into the factory harness. I had added the relay harness from LMC a few years ago and have been happy with. Figured it could be cleaner spliced with the factory harness.

Before:

After:

All of the coiled wires are things that need to be spliced either into the VW harness or connected to the Can2Dash box. The short wires in the middle of the table still need to be un-pinned from the bulkhead connector.

Just waiting on some harness wrap to show up so I can finish this up.

Leftover rat nest:

Looked over everything I need for the gauge cluster while I was doing this. Almost all of the gauges and lights will still work either in their existing form or with signals from the VW computer and Can2Dash. The only thing that won’t work is the oil pressure gauge. The VW computer does get a reading from a sensor on the block but has no output for oil pressure. If it reads low pressure it throws the check engine light. I can live with one non functioning gauge.

The low oil light does lose its functionality but the plan is to repurpose it for use as the glow plug/wait to start light.

 

[410Fortune]

Can bus emulator for the tach signal
Very cool! We need more can bus support from the aftermarket

I would have kept the headlight harness separate from drivetrain. Ford only did that for a few short years thank goodness!

Can’t wait to see tdi! Would love to do this to a bronco ii