Startup is successful

Troubleshooting gas engines is usually checking compression, ignition, and fueling, in that order.  I had checked cam timing before installation, and the cranking noise indicated that we had compression, so I crossed that off.  Looking at ignition, I had an earlier problem in that the engine, as purchased, had no coil.  I bought a coil on eBay, and when it arrived, I found that none of the output posts were numbered.  So, I went to the local Advance Auto, and found a Haynes manual for the '03 Focus that had been opened and (obviously) thumbed through, and looked up the ignition wiring.  I know, it's a bit tacky, but they got my alternator and starter business, so they're not suffering too much.
Haynes was useless.  The advice was that if the coil wasn't marked, make sure to document the connections before removing the old coil.  So, I asked Bostig, and they supplied me with a photo of a crated Zetec that showed the correct wiring.  I went back to that ticket, and confirmed that my wiring matched.  I don't have a spark tester, so I tentatively crossed off ignition.
Next, I carefully disconnected the incoming fuel line.  I had obvious pump noise when I turned the key, so I was surprised to see that the hose was dry.  I tried the pump with the hose disconnected, and - no fuel.  Aha!  I went under the van, and reversed the wiring to the fuel pump.  I then re-tried the pump, and got a good flow of fuel into a can I'd placed.  Buttoned everything up, and went back to startup.  This time, the engine fired right away, and after solving a final issue (see below), I let it run.  It slowly settled down as I watched its vitals on the Elmscan display (actually, the component on the laptop is called OBDwiz, but Elmscan sounds better).
The fuel trims varied widely for the first five minutes, as the engine probably tried to adjust to sticking injectors, then settled down to a good 5 - 7 percent (short).  The long trims came in at 24%, which is high, but influenced by the volatile short trims and should, I think, settle down.
We had a problem on the first start.  The engine started to howl right after it smoothed out, a noise that could only come from an accessory, which I proved by removing the belt and running the engine by itself for a couple of seconds.  The culprit turned out to be easy to find.  Somehow, the power steering reservoir had drained enough into the system over the past few days to bring the level below the height of the intake hose to the pump, and it was running dry.  We went downtown, bought a pint of PS fluid, and filled it back up.  Problem solved, except that at the end of the initial 20 minute run I seemed to be hearing a fair amount of noise from the pump, despite a full reservoir.  We'll monitor this today.
Next:  coordinating the drain/refill of the cooling system after the around-the-block run, which I hope to do late morning today.

A note on the throttle cable and cooling system

I have not posted details on the cooling hookup, nor the throttle cable installation, because I got tired of cleaning my camera after taking it under the van.  The cooling installation was fairly straightforward.  As I mentioned, the 1990 GL vanagon (ours) came standard with a rear heater, which was already plumbed into the hoses that run forward to the main (front) heater core.  So, hooking up the Bostig configuration was not difficult, other than the fact that the T connections for the heater hoses face in different directions, and require a somewhat longer hose to allow a non-kinking connection.  That may be an advantage when it comes to emptying the cooling system, which will come immediately after the initial run.  One thing that bears repeating:  the original water cooling layout for the boxer engine was a surreal assemblage of hoses, pipes, and connectors, and I almost wanted to re-assemble it and hang it from the garage ceiling, like a fossil skeleton, so I could sneer at it from time to time.
The throttle cable turned out to be somewhat complicated.  I tried at least three different cable routings, and kept coming up an inch or two short of the length I needed to get to the front bracket.  At one point, I measured the new cable against the old, and they were identical lengths.  So, back under the van, and I finally got a reasonably good path and got it attached and fastened down.  One of those half-hour jobs that ended up taking almost three hours.

All done . . . sort of.

Finished the last of the installation steps on Wednesday afternoon.  On Thursday morning, I got the Elmscan software loaded onto my laptop.  This required a big download from the Scantool website, since my laptop doesn't have a CD drive, which would be required to load the software from the supplied disk.  After getting the software ready, I took the laptop out to the vanagon and plugged into the ECU port.  The Elmscan failed to connect to the computer.  After some fooling around, I opened a ticket with Bostig, and ran through a couple of checks suggested by Jim.  He asked me to double-check the custom chip installation in the OEM computer, paying attention to whether the contact pins on the Ford circuit board were really clean.  Turned out I'd missed several, which were still coated with the plastic barrier.  So, I re-cleaned the board and reinstalled the chip.  Now everything worked, the Elmscan connected and I was ready for the test start.  I double-checked all connections, topped off the coolant, verified the oil, pulled out the fire extinguisher, and turned the key.

Nothing.

The connection to the starter is straight from the key to the solenoid.  I confirmed that 12v showed up at the solenoid connector, then realized that I'd plugged the starting connector to the wrong spade lug on the solenoid (there are three - take your pick).  After that was fixed, I turned the key again, and the engine cranked healthily.

Nothing.

So, I'm now troubleshooting the no-start issue.  We'll see what happens next.

The shift selector lever

The folks at Bus Depot regretted to inform me that the new shift lever had not arrived in their latest shipment, and might (but might not) arrive in June.  So, I went back to the old shift lever and smoothed out the inside as much as I could, then re-attached it to the shift rod and re-installed the linkage and new boot, with a generous dose of Phil's Waterproof Grease.  It should be better than it was, maybe much better, and can't be any worse.  The problem we'd been having was that the shifter would be very hard to get out of fourth gear if it had been driven for a long stretch without shifting (like, for example, on a trip to Oklahoma).  I suspect that the plastic ball on the trans was binding in the shift lever cup, but we'll see.

Some belated answers to Comments

Hello to Ian and Louise - I'm not sure whether IE was the cause of my not seeing that comments had been entered.  However, better late than never -  here are a few replies.
1.  I'm working by myself, except for a couple of small steps (feeding the wiring harness through the firewall, testing the re-installed clutch servo, pressurizing the fuel system) where Joan needed to be somewhere and I needed to be elsewhere in order to get the task done.  It's not been hard, solo, though I don't think I could have come close to removing and re-installing the engine without the engine hoist and floor jack that I was loaned.
2.  I'm using the stock heat shield, though I'm planning on purchasing some corrugated aluminum conduit to shield the lower coolant hose, which I think runs too close to the cat to be out of danger.  Re. the custom heat shield, STC diagnostics and HC oilpan - I decided on the minimum-cost approach as much as possible, since I want a better engine option, but I'm not made of money, and the oilpan and shield can be added later.  I've also got to save $$ to reactivate the A/C next summer, which was one of the objectives of doing this upgrade.
3. While Bostig shows the MIL light connected to spare fuse 25, always hot, I believe it's more appropriate to put it in the same circuit as the other warning lights.  There's no requirement that it be permanently energized, and tapping into T14 will allow a short wire (with coupler) to run to the lamp, easier to see and disconnect when I have to return to odometer-surgery.  During fuel system pressure-testing, I was able to confirm, using my voltmeter, that T14-8 is switched +12v.

Brake booster coupler - the resolution

Bostig gave me the name of a local (to them) Ford parts expert, who was very helpful.  He remembered having dealt with this problem some months ago, and after some research, he called me back and told me that he'd originally found a catalog error, in that the part was separately numbered, but not labeled as such in the catalog itself.  With the actual part number, it was easy to order the part, and it arrived last Friday (17th).  Here's a series of photos of the part, whole and disassembled:

From the top . . .

From the side - note teeth at bottom

Disassembled

In the bottom photo, the gray part at the top was already inserted into the intake manifold.  The row of teeth at the bottom are angled outwards, which holds the gray part in the manifold.  I decided that trying to pull the old coupler out would result in tearing of the hole in the intake, and risk damaging the seal that the outside O-ring makes.  So, I carefully worked out the red plastic ring shown at bottom, which also released the interior O-ring.  I was able to remove the old O-ring from the existing coupler, insert the new O-ring (with some WD-40), and then insert the new vacuum pipe and red locking ring.
It's ready for action, and I hope that the seal is good.  A small leak won't affect braking, but (like any air leak after the air mass sensor) will cause fuel mixture problems.

Just as we solve one problem . ..

. .. we get another.  I've been struggling to post on the blog, but was unable to enter and save any post text.  It turns out that the Blogspot posting application no longer supports Internet Explorer.  So, we have to download the recommended browser, Chrome (surprise!), and move everything over from IE.  Not a big chore, but it took awhile, and though Chrome is much faster than IE, there are still some sites that I use, especially related to my internet satellite work, that require IE.  I had really liked having only one browser to keep updated, but there we are.  Now, back to the main show.

What's left?

We still have to run the new throttle cable, connect the shift rod (I hope the new parts arrive soon), and connect and fill the cooling system.
The cooling system diagrams shown on Bostig's documentation do not cover the case of a vanagon with the optional rear heater, which ours has.  However, the automatic transmission models have a similar setup, with the transmission oil cooler taking the place of the heater that our van has, so I don't foresee a problem.  I'm also having a problem obtaining the Ford proprietary coupler that connects the brake booster vacuum line to the intake manifold.  The local folks aren't sure what it's called, and I may have the same problem with the Ford dealer up north.  If I need to order this (likely), I may plug the intake manifold and run through the start-and-monitor cycle that is done before taking it on the road.

Power Steering

The old high-pressure line is re-used to connect to the "new" pump, after it's mounted to the engine.  I found that the old line's orientation, length, and stiffness made this connection very difficult, but I eventually got it done and tightened up.
With that done, I started to slide out from under to continue the job, and found that one of the copper crush washers had slipped out during my struggles to get the banjo bolt started, and was sitting on the floor under the pump.  So, I did it all over again.
The old PS reservoir is also re-used, with an new supplied bracket.  That installation was easy, but then I found that I couldn't connect the new supply line from the reservoir to the pump, since the intake elbow on the pump was pointing up toward the reservoir, which didn't allow sufficient clearance to allow the hose to bend.  After fooling around a little, and even trying to fit the old and more flexible VW hose (it was too small for the pump inlet pipe), I went back and studied the various photos of installed pumps on Bostig's website.  I saw that the elbow on their pumps was parallel to the ground, not pointing up.  So, since I had re-checked my pump model number and made sure it was the right one, I decided that the elbow must be capable of being moved.  I found a round bar that fit into the pipe, and carefully twisted until the pipe moved, and re-aligned it so that it was "flat" instead of pointing upward.  I don't know what I'd have done if it broke.

Here's the final installation.  You can see a little broken paint at the base of the elbow there below the reservoir.  The hose connection to the reservoir puts a fair amount of tension on the lower nipple; I hope it doesn't cause a problem later on - I did the best I could in trimming and adjusting the hose.

Tach mod and MIL installation

There's not much interesting about the tachometer mod.  I've taken the instrument cluster out of this vehicle so often, due to the speedo problems, that I could do it in my sleep.  So, this was a quick job, aided by the fact that I have all the soldering/desoldering tools and experience using them.
One thing that is worth a photo - for the MIL, I need to find a source of switched 12v to power the light.  I pored over the VW wiring diagrams, but I'm only mostly sure I've correctly identified the track that feeds power to the instrument cluster through the plug "T14", which is slipped onto the edge of the plastic circuit card on the instrument cluster.
As I was looking over the instrument cluster connection, I noticed (for the first time in how many years) that there's a legend next to each trace, on the hidden back side of the circuit card that folds over the "plug":

Didn't save my bacon, though.  It may not be clear in this photo, but the labels are in German, and abbreviated, to boot.  Pin 5 is "+UHR", which goes to the clock, so we know that's unswitched 12v.  The only other candidate is pin 8, labelled "+ALLGEN." or "+ALLGEI." - can't tell which.  I'm pretty sure that's switched 12v, but if anyone knows better, drop me a line.  Once I re-attach the battery, of course, I can find what I need with a voltmeter.

Wiring installation complete

The wiring harness prep consists of adding the modified Ford Explorer ECU to the supplied relay board, then installing these into a steel mounting cage for installation under the rear seat of the van, where the original VW ECU was.  Here's the completed ECU box, ready to go in:

It's quite a bit taller than the VW unit, so I'm going to have to check to ensure that it clears the bottom of the seat when I install it (the location is under the rear seat).

There is now a short intermission, while Joan feeds the various plugs and cables through the 2" hole inside the Vanagon, to me under the van as I guide them into the right starting positions.

The major part of the harness runs around beneath the top edge of the engine compartment, like the old harness did.  Here's a shot of one of the busy areas at the front (driver) end of the engine compartment, showing how neatly it goes where it needs to.  Since the various plugs emerge from the harness near to the connectors they go to, it's almost a ten-minute job to fasten it down and plug almost everything in.  Three exceptions, to be covered later:  the speed sensor, which has to be installed, the wire to the Malfunction Indicator Light MIL) and the new light, and the fuel pump wire, which will have to be routed to the fuel pump where it's mounted next to the base of the sliding door.

Now I've mounted the ECU and added a tiny grommet to feed out the MIL wire.  You can see the two pins that held the old ECU to the top and left of the new one.  I found that I could easily mount the new unit, using the threaded stud at the bottom of the old unit in the center hole of the bottom of the new mount, then using a standoff on the top left.  The right-hand top corner is mounted with a stainless steel screw, since that location emerges inside the wheel well, and even though I treated the area with rustproofing, I wanted to cut the chance of corrosion failure.

I would have taken a photo of the stud, but I'd left the camera out on the bench when I was drilling and mounting.  You have to climb in and out of the well behind the seat by crawling over the motor, so I didn't go back out for a photo.

A correction regarding the fuel return

After further tracing of the fuel lines, during the install of the MIL wire to the front of the van, I found that the return connects to the very bottom of the rear of the fuel tank, easy to reach.  However, it's secured by several Oetiker clamps and seems in good shape, so I'm sticking with my resolution to replace this line later in the spring, when I can do it outside, since I can't see any way to avoid spilling enough fuel for it to be dangerous.