Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

[All_Euro]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

DAY FIVE

Weekdays are tough as I'm really busy at work and daylight is at a premium these days but tonight was basically another seam sealer and spot weld party... except I did a little grinding and cutting I suppose. Feels weird to move past scraping and drilling to cutting - a good weird though

The bottom corners going into the trunk area are reinforced with brackets that are welded in and pretty tough to get out - but they need to go as the new pan height is quite a bit higher to accommodate the haldex drivetrain... I tried grinding the welds but couldn't get at all of them so I thought it made sense to just cut along the top of the bracket towards the fenders - and then along the floor pan to the frame rails.

I have to be nice to the seat brackets as the ones from the TT are different so these will likely get welded to the new pan. The seat/gas tank area was the trickiest area of the TT pan to pull apart nicely so it probably makes the most sense to remove the back part of the GLI pan first and get busy on the seat area afterwards... we'll see...

[mk4jetta]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

Good progress so far! Did you end up renting a car?

[All_Euro]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

Thanks for all the props and comments guys.

The weather is a motivator for sure but hopefully I can get back on the road before things get arctic. Roughly speaking, I'd like to be done in two weeks... I'm kind of taking my time but not to the point of being lazy. I agree though, these cars NEED all wheel drive - it's the only thing that's missing really...

[All_Euro]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

Good progress so far! Did you end up renting a car?

Thanks - I did as this is my only car and, as long as I finish in a reasonable amount of time, it's cheaper to rent than buy/fix/insure something else. That's all up front $ that could go into the build so I'm all about Toyota these days... Corolla I think.

[kujiwara]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

This is pretty damn awesome! I think you'll finish within two weeks with crazy progress like this!

[Disturbo]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

Props. When I did my swap years ago it was a learning curve. What are you going to use to makeup the difference in length in the trunk. I think its a 8" or 10" channel you can buy.

[All_Euro]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

DAY SIX

More of the same except once my drill batteries ran out so I finally pulled the front seats and console extension... what a difference - glad I finally did that. These batteries run out fast - I might buy a corded drill so I don't waste a weekend not being able to do much.

I tried drilling the welds just through the first layer of metal and then prying the metal apart with a chisel but it's pretty tough to get all of the weld out (unless you want to drill a giant hole) which is ok some of the time but other times the metal rips apart and causes quite a bit of damage. So I think drilling right through is better overall - way quicker and at least the holes that need filling are nice and tidy.

[All_Euro]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

This is pretty damn awesome! I think you'll finish within two weeks with crazy progress like this!

Thanks - I'm not sure about the two week estimate but we'll see... prob three but it doesn't matter as long as it's not two months or something crazy like that. Actually, even if it does I'm going to try not to worry about it and just enjoy the process.

Props. When I did my swap years ago it was a learning curve. What are you going to use to makeup the difference in length in the trunk. I think its a 8" or 10" channel you can buy.

Ya I saw that thread on Vortex from way back - nice work. I've been wanting to do this swap for about 10 years so I've got yours bookmarked with some others I collected along the way... and just finally started looking at closely

My plan to make up the difference in floor pan lengths has been to splice in part of my GLI pan but I haven't checked to see how close the frame rails are in size/shape yet. Is the channel an OEM piece or do you mean that a standard steel channel welds in nicely?

The wheel-well portion will need to be modified too but I thought I'd just match it up to the TT well as best I can. Down the road I'll likely redo the wheel-well/floor area to house a 10L washer fluid tank, battery, tire and emergency essentials...

[PRY4SNO]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

Looking good man!

Bora-ding trips will be badass from here on out

[All_Euro]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

DAY SEVEN

Had a closer look at the frame rails on the TT vs the GLI where they tie into the bumper... the TT rails drop down a fair amount at the end of the trunk and they might just tie into the same spot as the GLI rails. In view of that, I'm going to try to pull the pan off the frame rails to see if I can just splice the TT rails into the existing ones. My drill batteries died right away again though so I didn't get a lot done - going to buy a corded drill in the morning!

You can see in the picture where the spot welds are that hold the pan to the frame rail - two in the bottom corner have been drilled out along with two more by my key... finishing that will be the priority tomorrow.

[All_Euro]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

Looking good man!

Bora-ding trips will be badass from here on out

Thank you, thank you... each bit of progress is a little more exciting than the last.

Haha - true... I'll finally be able to get in with youz quattro guyz on the snowy parking-lot doughnut action too.

[GingerBeef]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

This is some really crazy stuff!! Good luck man!

[All_Euro]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

DAY EIGHT

Finished drilling the welds that hold the pan to the rails yesterday. There are two rows of welds along the inner fenders - the upper row is for the frame rail and the lower row is for the floor pan itself. Along the pan floor, the driver's side frame rail welds are up top whereas the passenger side welds are along the top of the wheel well most of the way and then curve up by the back seats...








From the other direction you can see the why the passenger side welds run along the upper well and curve upward - this side uses the wheel well as part of its structure...




Belle and Aston Martin checking on progress. Facing towards the back you can really see the difference in rails and how they attach to the bumper area - notice the seam near the back of the rails...






The location of these seams, which are on both sides, is about the difference in length between the GLI and TT floor pans; so I'll drill out the spot welds and finish removing everything forward of them... after I get the back seat area out...

[All_Euro]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

This is some really crazy stuff!! Good luck man!

Cheers - I think this arctic weather and snow has just turned this peaceful little project into a sport!

[Ponto]

Re: Floor Pan Swap - haldex to come...

Fantastic work man, its amazing. Really enjoying the progress.