Bought a donor - now what?

[mammonista]

So yesterday I bought a '96 Passat TDI with the intention of harvesting the engine, transmission, intercooler for my recently acquired '93 Jetta or my '87 Van/DIY DOKA (which has a recently rebuilt transaxle).

Mechanically the Passat seems to be in pretty good shape, but the body and interior are THRASHED! What parts should I try to salvage from this old beast? I'm going to go with swapping the injector pump for a mechanical conversion so I'm assuming I need zero electronics from the car. But you know what happens when you assume. But are the axles, CVs, instrument cluster, shifter linkage, etc. worth keeping?

Any input is appreciated.

[bscutt]

My experience is that you can't go back and get something after the car goes to the scrapyard; in other words I would pull anything connected to the drive train including the wiring harness and ECU, hoses, reservoirs, axles (in case you need the flanges), connectors, radiator?. Worst case you have more stuff to store until your project is finished but you lessen the chances of the "darn I wish I'd kept that widget" syndrome.

I also just grab anything else of the vehicle that might sell including light fixtures, lamp sockets, intact interior parts and handles, etc. I only do this because I like to pass on whatever I can to someone who can use it instead of it getting crushed or buried. It has paid off for me since we found in my case that B3 Passat (I scrapped on a few years ago) parts also fit the Corrado which we have in the family. Those obsolete parts can be hard to find and very expensive if you do.

[air-cooled or diesel]

So yesterday I bought a '96 Passat TDI with the intention of harvesting the engine, transmission, intercooler for my recently acquired '93 Jetta or my '87 Van/DIY DOKA (which has a recently rebuilt transaxle).

Mechanically the Passat seems to be in pretty good shape, but the body and interior are THRASHED! What parts should I try to salvage from this old beast? I'm going to go with swapping the injector pump for a mechanical conversion so I'm assuming I need zero electronics from the car. But you know what happens when you assume. But are the axles, CVs, instrument cluster, shifter linkage, etc. worth keeping?

Any input is appreciated.

whats the chance engine/drive train are trashed?

[mammonista]

The engine and trans seem good. I drove it about 3 miles and aside from the fact that it had zero power (I'm thinking bad turbo?) it ran and revved just fine. Zero smoke. Zero blow-by. No funny noises from the engine. Injector pump leaks but I figured since I'm replacing that not a big deal. No funny noises from the 5-speed either and shifted fine and didn't jump out of gear.

[82vdub]

I would default to what bscutt said and keep everything associated with the engine and trans in case you discover that you need something else. The ends of the axles may be different, so you may need one end from one car and the other from the other car. Same with the shifter mechanism. You may have to make custom mounts to fit it into the chassis too, and may have to adjust something to get things to fit properly. I've never done a VW conversion before to know.

[surfcam]

I wouldn't drive your donor car if the turbo's gone. Most TDI,s will over fuel when this happen's with very bad results. Scuffed cylinders, bad bearings etc. You can pull the rubber intake off and easily check this. Just give it a spin.

[Fatmobile]

Might be a carboned-up intake.