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1982 Lada Niva with a Peugeot diesel engine swap


Goce

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I've took on this project some time ago, this was one of this projects like opening a can of worms.Here is what this little russian 4x4 looked when i got it towed home.

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It was looking presentable, but i won't be fold i've seen the bubbling filler and rusting floor, missing trunk floor with a big propane tank, the price was right and come with a story that is ex government car. With every place that i touched being worse than i thought i had to do a lot of rust repair, some mechanical, lots of electrical. I'll post some pictures of the rust repairs i did on it.

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Rust as usual. I remember going to the scrapyard to find a 5 speed Niva gearbox crossmember and the one they handed me was still bolted to small chunks of rusted shell.

Speaking of 5 speed with a diesel engine you need longer ratios.

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Yeah this thing is incredibly slow, more like a tractor than an automobile. Final drive is harder to change then on a FWD vehicle, this has two differentials. And after talking with many people that know this cars inside out i'll like to keep my slow differentials, my niva has 4.3 diffs. Everyone is saying they are the strongest because they have the biggest teeth. The plan is to use oversize tires, bigger by 2-3 inches and install a 5 speed gearbox. the ratios are the same except for 5th is 0.82, this will increase my top speed by 20 km/h. On the other hand 5 speed gearboxes are hard to find, 3x more expensive and weaker then 4 speeds.

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The plan to use this engine, this is the same engine that i was going to use in the tug project. it's become even dirtier from sitting in my garage, also i've robbed couple of parts off it. I also loaded some more parts that i needed to clean for this conversion, my spare 4 speed gearbox, couple flywheel. Making the adapter plate to fit the french engine to russian gearbox will be also hard. Next on the list is to clean the parts i've loaded on my trailer.

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The Niva will be even more sluggish with this engine, that's why the diesel version didn't sell that well: at the time it was better and probably even cheaper to convert the stock engine to liquefied petroleum gas.

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This engine will be perfect to get me past the inspection for certification, also by age they are close, the niva being 82 the engine 84. I'm on the look for a 90hp TD with a bosch pump but they are very difficult to found, even broke engines with broken camshafts, bent valves mising turbos are going for 3-400e, which is insanity. From talking to a guy who's done 3 niva conversions getting them to pass is the hardest part, because this is not a same make of engine and vehicle there is only one place that certifies them in the main city at the university of motor vehicles and they are very strict. I plan to make the engine mounts universal and i'll live as much space as i can for the turbocharger if i can't find an engine till then, but for the first time i'll use N/A engine. The stock lada engine is much weaker than a 1,9D  don't forget i have the older 1570cc engine not the 1,7 and a carburator.

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Today i spent some time with my pressure washer, washed the engine, gearbox and all the other parts. The gearbox had lots of dirt and grime and made a mess of my wash area. On other hand the engine did clean up very well, looks to be unmolested old engine. I need to get it started before i install it, its been sitting i want to check oil pressure, glow plugs to check the fuel pump for leaks, any other checks i'm forgetting?

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I'm a person who wants to be always ready and i want to have spares for all my equipment and vehicles, and after i dicaded i'll use my last complete XUD9 in the littel niva i won't have enough spares, so i took the little niva for a drive with the trailer in tow and visited all the breakers yard. Found a place they had 3 XUD9, two normally aspirated and one turbo, but two of them are in cars and they don't remove them, one was already out, probably because someone needed a fuel pump and is hard to remove the pulley out with out the special tool, so he took out the entire engine and box, looked around the yard and found me a turbocharger, and a special alternator with the vacuum pump on the back of it, those are hard to find and very expensive. Because i found mayonez in the coolant hose and it had parts missing, the guy there priced it as scrap steel, after we loaded it on my trailer by hand, he started noticing, oh it has a starter, it has all the sensors, it has injectors, it has a vacuum pump, clutch is in it and he said man did you get a good deal on it, so i relay if you want to make it even better throw in this turbo and alternator, he said the turbo you can have but give me 10 bucks more for that alternator, so in total i paid 70$. I could have paid one more 0 to that price if i did not shop around, also the little niva helped i showed up in a working man vehicle.

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It came out from a silver 309 Vital 1994. It has a very strange looking intake manifold with EGR. 

From what i could find DJZ is 1905cc 47kw unit, i'm still looking for XUD9TE. From what i could find on the net they have many different tings like bigger oil pump, different intake ports storinger conrods and oil jets, do you have any experience is this right.

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The XUD9TE is indeed special but not unique, it's mostly a XUD7TE with a 83mm bore. The oval intake ports started with the XUD7TE and became standard with the XUD9A so you can blot most manifolds (but not the one from your XUD9Y).

The last XUD9TE had problems with weak rods and shattered prechambers so before buying you better check if it's a D8A (good) or a DHY/DHX (not as much).

You can also look for the XUD7T(E), they don't have these problems and the strong parts and oil jets are already there.

And if you find a Rover 218/418 SL turbo maybe you can have one for cheap, it's hard to tell it's a XUD with the "TURBO INTERCOOLED" plastic thing on top.

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Thank you SRDT, it's good to know. This info will make the search even harder, just couple of hours ago i visited a big car disassembling place, they had only one 1,9 Td at 600e but when i checked the PTC plate it was 161 A that is a N/A 1,8d engine that someone recently bolted up turbo and td pump, i suspected it when i've seen oil supply run from the front of the engine. People the own those businesses are very hard to deal with, real huslers.

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The XUD9SD with low pressure turbo and no interooler are labelled DHV/DHW but Peugeot used weaker parts inside like N/A rods and crank.

There is no such problem with the XUD7T(E) (A8A/A8B), intercooler or not it's the same bare engine.

As for the oil pump the XUD9TE is using a special one but on a N/A XUD you can copy the XUD7TE setup with a 1.1 mm spacer under the pump, a 52 links chain and a 26 teeth sprocket on the crank.

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Well, i've been buying more car parts and surprise surprise one more parts car followed me home. I was looking for a Turbo diesel peugeot engine for the little niva, but because their popularity they proved to be much harder to find than i thought. In the last place i bought the XUD9 they had this vehicle but it was in a very bed spot in the yard where using a engine hoist will be dangerous, the owner doesn't want to use any time to move it because he needs to move letualy tones of scrap to make a poth. The chain link fence it was parked next to had a hole in it, so i ask the owner how much for the entire car, he said 200 bucks a contract with 150 then he said i'll meet you in the middle if you can get it out today, he was thinking i'll disassemble it and tack what i can carry haha. We shook hands and i fired up the little niva drove behind the yard into a plowed field next to the hole in the fence, had to remove the ignition lock someone took the key, went to the owner called him over to steer the car and pulled it out with the little niva, thru the field around the block to the main road. Drove the guy back, pay him and call me a tow truck. He was surprised how much pulling power the little 4x4 had and how i taught to get it out that way. Not bad for 175$ but i don't think others would be able to get it out. And it is D8A, the bad thing is it's been sitting with the intercooler removed and the hood open and appears to be stuck also some had removed the all the glow plugs from all the engines in that place, i got the intercooler that goes to this engine it was put to the side.

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3 hours ago, SRDT said:

Nice find!

It's amazing how much you can tow with a Niva in low gear.

I'm amazed how much it can pull and how it gets traction, That ZX isn't light it had 4 flat tires, and the field was freshly plowed and uphill, i'm sure the bottom of the ZX is full of earth i drag it on its floor. I also think the rear bumper got hang on the fence or on a big rock because at the road it was missing i did not go looking for it.

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It's just a Fiat 124 sedan gearbox after all, Lada had no choice but to use what they already had. I have read that Lada gearbox bearings don't last that long but will make a lot of noise before total failure so you're less likely to have a bearing suddenly self destruct and damage the rest of the gearbox.

The way I see it if you're using the low gears and the center diff lock to slowly get out of a tight spot it's okay but if you tow so much that you need the low gears then you can't really complain about the gearbox.

On a modern car torque would be limited by the ECU so that you don't overdo it but there is no such thing on the Niva... which is good when you need to pull a ZX from time to time.

My grandpa didn't complain when the gearbox started whining on his Niva, he knew very well that towing too much for too long on a steep gravel road was the reason for this.

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SRDT, i totally agree with all you are saying. There is no real electronics in the little niva is as basic as is humanly possible, i do miss some of the modern fucers, like central locking, electric windows, A/C, Power steering. This is going to be a weekend toy / workhorse, so i may be installing modifying it. I've never needed to lock the central diff when going off road, i did lock it once when doing donuts in a sandpit, is simply has not enough power to do 4wd drifts only real fun thing it does good is jumping. Here parts are comically cheap, 5$ for a OEM glass and steel headlight, 1$ interior door handles prices like that and everything is available, because is still in production, they are still selling new for under 10k.

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You don't need central locking if it's pointless to lock the car: as usual the locks for the quarter windows on the front doors are missing so you can just open them and grab the door handle inside.

As for power steering try the electric ones on the steering column from a Corsa or a Clio, you could even add a Steering Quickener.

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40 minutes ago, SRDT said:

You don't need central locking if it's pointless to lock the car: as usual the locks for the quarter windows on the front doors are missing so you can just open them and grab the door handle inside.

As for power steering try the electric ones on the steering column from a Corsa or a Clio, you could even add a Steering Quickener.

Yeah, i've bottled up those quarter windows, i've got multiple kill switches, and few more safety measures also new key cylinders, around here lada niva is one of the most stolen vehicle.

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Today i spent around 6 hours disassembling the latest parts car i purchased, stripping cars for parts here is a bit more difficult here. Scrap yards won't take the body shell as a whole, i need to remove most of the plastics and other materials just to leave the steel. And i have to cut the body in pieces so i can take it out with my little trailer. Removing the front end was easy, i did cut apart the front bumper and put it in a trash bag, in fact most of the interior went in trash bags. The glass on this car has some value, so i took my time, disassembling all the doors removing glass, mechanisms. Then i used and old hood cable to cut out the windscreens and one of the rear quarter window, the drivers side was homemade from ordinary glass, few more hours on the mechanics should be ready to make space for other projects.
I hope you like seeing this process how i can get parts so cheap.

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Well, engine is out and most of the interior, also chop the roof to have easier access, now is a rolling skateboard, i need to clean up a bit before i continue, as big of a garage i have is getting tight.

Unexpected find is that this chassis is much more sturdy than some of peugeot sedans. I've chipped the roof on couple of 405's they buckle immediately.

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