Im out to work on it for a few hours now. Made good progress yesterday.
The basic situation is:
Vehicle: BJ73, Spanish, 4 cyl 2.5 TD VM4a with aircon.
CHGs blown. Don't know what's tracking into what, or if it was overheating, but my friend who transported it reports on the vehicles last long trip it was needing to be refilled with water every forty miles. No evidence of mayonaise in the oil so if im lucky it was pissing coolant out the side of one of the CHG's and not tracking into oil.
Dashboard dismantled.
Heater matrix, fan unit and air con removed. Aircon unit so badly mangled in removal as to be rendered u/s.
Bonnet, inner, outer wings, slam panel, front grill removed.
Water pump, all hoses, radiator, intercooler, other cooling matrixes removed.
Power steering pump and hoses removed.
Brake master cylinder removed and one of the brake lines twisted and snapped at master cylinder.
Rocker covers off engine.
Nuts and bolts all over the vehicle have been randomly loosened. Sub assemblies have been dismantled or "played" with.
Basically, the person from whom I bought it did not have the know how to take on a total rebuild which he told me had been his plan. Nothing is labeled or sorted and a fair amount of damage has been caused during the disassembly.
I have taken on several builds in my time and I'm used to coming accross gross amateur bodgery, but this one takes the feckin sausage. I'm genuinely staggered and a little impressed by the levels of scatterbrained incompetence that the previous owner has displayed.
Anyway <counts to ten>... I have to let it go and crack on.
If anyone has any photos of dash assmbly projects and engine compartment photos I'd be really grateful.
I've got a few from my 2010 project but know I'll need more.
Can anyone identify the black relay in the photos? And also the little white button? The button looks like it lives somewhere near the steering column or lower drivers dash area.
Thanks for looking. I'm guessing this will become a kind of re-build thread. Also, if anyone has any questions or needs practical help with 4cyl VMs just ask... I've rebuilt the top end of one of these twice now and am about to do it again. Not bad engines and reasonably easy to work on.
Cheers,
OD