The recipient for this transplant is going to be a Coupe GT that I have had sitting in the side yard for a few years that I had repurchased for Urq parts. It has it's problems and especially after three or four years with the nineteen year old niece. I bought it back not running, but still too good of shape to scrap or part out.
This is the only picture that I could dig up tonight, but I will try to post up some more later. The drivers side has a dented front fender and door and a small dent in the rear quarter by the door line. It came back to the house minus a cat.....someone had gone to the trouble of stealing it while it sat on the road in a residential area. The starter was bad also and a ignition switch that wants to work sometimes and then not so much. Both window regulators are broke and it had no oil on the dipstick, no hydraulic oil in the reservoir, no brake fluid showing....none..... and no gas.
The plan is to get the car running on the everything stock condition so that I can register it as a classic, and then swap in a TDI. More on getting it running later, but first lets talk about the TDI. I know that there are those out there that aren't going to think the type 85 a good platform to run a TDI and that they deserve to be the sporty little front driver that they were intended, not a slow, smoke belching commuter. My way of thinking was that if I were to keep it a five banger, those purists might be able to somehow forgive me of my errors so I began the search for a proper I5 diesel. It so happened that Janus, whom most of you know from motorgeek, had gone back to Europe and was looking for 01e Trannys in the junkyard over there to ship to the US to help supplement his income and help out some audi nuts on this side of the pond. I figured what better time and asked him if he would look for a good candidate I5 TDI. After a few days he emails that he has found the perfect candidate in a 97 Audi A6 with the 140hp AEL TDI. The car had been rearended hard and totaled, but only had ~81000 km or about 50k on the engine. He sent me a video of reaching in and starting it right up and hearing it sit and idle. The madness was born and it was just a matter of money and time to float it across the pond.
About 3 months later this crate showed up at Hanks shop in Las Vegas.
It was obvious that it came from snow country (Latvia), but all in all a very clean TDI to start with. I had told him that since they were never offered here in the US, that I would need everything with it to make it run. I would need the ECU, harness, auxiliaries, clutch and pressure plate and anything that he thought I would need without taking up more precious room on the pallet. The car it came out of was a right hand driver quattro so the transmission wasn't going to work for me. I didn't want to build a TDI car and have it coupled to gas gearing so I needed to decide how I was going to tackle that problem. The AEL's were all bolted to 01e trannys and wouldn't easily bolt up to an 016, so wanting TDI gears I had a FWD 01e 6sd sourced. Obviously I will have to deal with mounts, axles, and such, but the thought of a .56 6th gear in a 2600lb car sounded like what I was after in a commuter.
This is the AEL with the FWD 01e 6sp along with the harness, MAF, A/C compressor, etc.
This project will probably be put together mostly at Iroz Motorsport so could technically be considered a shop project, but given Hank's reputation........well he might not want his name on a diesel project.
What does the forum think of this start as a project and as a shop project coming out of Iroz Motorsport? Be sure to weigh in and offer suggestions and knowledge....especially Martin since he has already done a B4 90q TDI.
I started by pulling the starter since once the battery was charged and good I couldn't get the starter to turn. I pulled it apart to find the gear drive mechanism broke and the brushes pretty well worn. In hauling the mill from Salt lake down to Vegas, I brought some parts from guys up there to Hank. In the pile of parts were a couple of starters from Dave (Hybridhatch). I told Hank that freight would be charged as a starter and threw it on. It worked some of the time and I quickly realized that the ignition switch was on its way out. I still haven't changed it out, but know the trick now. I cranked and cranked until I realized it was out of gas, put a few gallons in from the lawn mower can and proceeded to crank again. I could hear the pump running which kind of surprised me, but no go until all of a sudded a pop, a sputter and it comes to life. It jerks and sputters for a few seconds and then just settles into a nice 800rpm idle. 
It has started everytime within a half second of turnover for the last 1500 miles. Impressive It runs so well that I almost hate to ruin a good thing.
