Exhausting

Today's post covers a few things. First, I ordered some more hose, and spent more cycles thinking on the cooling system. Then, today, I did some time under the rear end working on the exhaust. On to the post...

Cooling off on cooling
After dwelling on the radiator and other aspects of the cooling system for most of the Winter, I've grown tired of that part of the project. It's pretty close to done, but there are a few holes left.
First, I need to find a pair of 90* 1-1/4" elbows and a short (say 1') stretch of straight 1-1/4" coolant rubber. I'd like to get a more dramatic bend at the radiator, and those parts are needed for that. I haven't been able to find a local source for the 90* bends, so I may have to order online for those :(
Second, I have the cabin heat circuit. I'd going to punt that whole system into next Summer. So, in order to tie that off, I need to get some things done anyway. For example, I am running the ALH engine "without glow plug heater", so the hose that runs from that flange is different (hose p/n is 1C0121157A). For some reason, VW thought it would be a good idea to have the flange just a little fatter than the hoses, so you need a VW hose that has a fat end on it. There's a picture of it on the left here. That hose ties into a plastic "T" that routes to the cabin heater and to the fill bottle. I plan to do everything except the cabin heat, but I need a closed system.
Since I need those parts, I'm moving on from the cooling system for now. I'll get back to those later.

Not Exhausting
When I bought this engine, I got the old exhaust run with it. I was sent the catalytic converter, a long stretch of pipes, one of those flex things, etc. Handy stuff. I didn't get a muffler, but I found a guy that was unloading one of those soup-can mufflers on craigslist for $10. Love cl. It had a short stretch of bent pipe on it.
So, today, I got under the bus to think through how it route the exhaust. The section of pipe from the turbo was about 6" of bendy pipe connected to a flexi-pipe, and then another short section of pipe that was then connected to the cat. I cut-off and sold the cat a while back, but I kept the rest of it. I hung the remaining pipe onto the turbo and discovered that it ran straight under the driver-side frame. I put the rear bumper in its approximate location, and lined things up. I discovered that I had all the necessary pipe in-hand; I just needed to cut it into pieces, clean them up a bit and line it up. In the end, I was able to align things so the exhaust line will run from the turbo straight to the bottom of the left wall and turn to the rear. Immediately after the turn, it will enter the muffler. The tip will be just past the bottom edge of the bumper, and about an inch below. I should have taken a picture in-place, but the picture to the right, here, shows where we're at. I cut up the pipe, fitted it together, sharpie'd lines for alignment, and pulled it down. I was able to break out the welder and tack-weld the flexi-pipe to the bend, but I couldn't get the muffler to weld to the bend. Its probably user-error. I'm looking forward to Hal's next visit so this can be finished up. In the meantime, I know where the muffler and exhaust lines will be, so I can move on to other things.

I should have some more time tomorrow. So, I'm going to hit the induction / intake side. I have all of the old plastic tubing from the original install of this engine, so I may be able to just juggle those into a usable system. The exhaust is nearly done, the coolant system is nearly done, and, if all goes well tomorrow, the intake side will be well under way.

More next time...