Thanks. Good to know.

 

I took the subframe back out so I could clean off thirty years of oil and grime from the engine bay with a toothbrush and some degreaser.




The photos really don't show the difference but it is quite a transformation. Before:






After:

 

Inspired by the clean engine bay I thought I'd go parts shopping. First thing to show up was this new hall sensor for the distributor. The old one broke the connector off during engine extraction but was marginal anyway. This one is meant for a Ford but seems to be a match. Not ready to disassemble the distributor right now though.




I managed to find a used coolant reservoir locally. This is after I cleaned it out. It is a slightly different shape on top but has the same part number. At least it's not in-your-face-shiny-new looking.




I thought it might be an idea to pressure test it so enlisted my bike pump. Gave it 22psi and a bath. No bubbles and it held that pressure overnight. I guess we pressure tested the pump too.








I sent off the steering rack for a refresh to Jorgen Automotive. They seem to be the authority in these matters and are only 45 minutes west of me. Sent it Monday, got it back Wednesady! Amazing turnaround. I specifically asked them not to bead blast the body as I wanted to retain the patina. Normally they would be like new when they are done.








I also sent out the turbo for rebuild but that won't be back till next week at the earliest.

Not sure what to tackle next. Might refurbish the wiper mechanism as it's slow and I can stand in the engine bay to work on it. I could open up troubleshooting the CIS system but that's probably too a big job for my current schedule, or I could add some relays to the headlights as they are a lot more accessible with the engine out. Damn, everything is a lot more accessible with the engine out on this thing.

 

I took the wiper mechanism out of the car today because it was running slow. Typical of this car: you can see it, can remove the bolts but have to jiggle the crap out of it to extract it! Will be fun putting it back.








The theory is that the spindle bearings and joints seize up over time. I sprayed the joints with grease and greased the pivots. I couldn't say that they were seized but I believe they are now free-er at least.




Another theory is that the gear lube gets old and dry but I have to drill out rivets to get inside. Not sure about that yet.




I then installed the replacement coolant reservoir.

 

I reassembled the wiper mechanism today and put it back in the car. Seems to work.



As I had to remove a couple of relays to make enough room I cleaned the fuse box and coated all the relay contacts with dielectric grease.



Inspired by my electrical prowess I might tackle adding relays to the headlights tomorrow. I seem to remember reading about a simple plug and play kit that was available. Anyone have a source?

 

Oops, seems like tomorrow turned into two months. Sorry about that. Got a little distracted by wheel sales, 911 mods and this:



An 83 that looks like it wants to be a rally replica build. I'll post a link to it's buid thread once we get stuck in. But first we have to finish this one right?


So what did we do lately in that regard? Well, we received our rebuilt turbo. Like with the steering rack we asked them not to bead blast the housings.






Then we tackled replacing the Hall sensor on the distributor as ours had brocken it's connector.










We did add the headlight relay kit we got from Germany but we haven't tested it yet so perhaps we'll address that in the next update. Hopefully not two months from now.

Happy New Year!

 

I didn't test the headlight relay kit today as I thought better of it. With so many wires detached from there things I didn't think it a good idea to introduce some live electrons. I did put back the lower console hiding the relays etc. and lubed the hood/bonnet pull handle so it no longer makes that awful noise.

What I next was take stock of what's left to do and what I need to do it. I'm actually close to the point where I will be stopped for lack of parts, some of them apparently hard to find. Here's what's still to do:

28 Refurbish CIS
29 Refurbish hydraulic system
31 Refurbish front struts tops, bellows
32 Install down pipe and turbo
33 Engine Oil
34 Transmission oil
35 Compression test
36 Attach sub-frame to transmission
37 Torque crank bolt
38 Clutch slave cylinder line
39 Install engine, trans, sub frame
40 Reconnect ancillaries
41 Bleed brakes
42 Hydraulic fluid
43 Fire up
44 Test drive
45 Alignment


and what I'm still missing:

CIS vacuum lines and god knows what else
Hydraulic lines, being remade by a friend
Strut Bellows 2 431412135
clutch slave cylinder hose 1 431721465 NLA
subframe bushings rear 2 857199419B discontinued
belt alternator 1 055903137G 9.5x850
front brake line 2 433837400A

any suggestions on where to get this stuff? Would prefer original Audi.

 

As I'm starting to run out of chronologically logical tasks I'm going to be jumping around a bit. First such worm hole leap: sub-frame bushings. Not all four though, just the front two. The rears are NLA and I haven't sourced an alternative yet. So here we go.....






Drill




Cut




Pry




Succeed




Sleeve still in




More cut and pry




Squeeze




Fail




Succeed a bit then fail




Win




Repeat.

 

After lots of back and forth and soul searching (as well as part searching) we made some part-ial progress:

CIS vacuum lines and god knows what else
I printed out four parts diagrams from vagpart.com and marched them up to the shop with the plan that I would go through each one and highlight (with a hiliter) everything that I wanted to replace. This would mostly be vacuum lines and clamps but there are quite a few different sizes and types so I wanted to make sure I got the right ones and didn't miss any. Well, guess what? I could barley even match the diagrams to my car! It's like the car and the diagrams are for two different cars, not even the same manufacturer. I found one common part; a bubble shaped vacuum bottle, and followed it's line back into the engine bay and at the first connector it departed from the parts diagram completely! We are going to have to rethink this approach. This is one of four vacuum line diagrams vs the real world.



Hydraulic lines, being remade by a friend
Still waiting on these. Might be a while.

Strut Bellows 2 431412135
I found they match a Porsche 944 part so ordered a pair from one of our customers: Pelican Parts. Will see next week if Porsche and Audi were on the same planet back in the 80s.

clutch slave cylinder hose 1 431721465 NLA
I got close but quit. I found an ATE hose that matched but it proved to be a unicorn. Couldn't find one anywhere. Then I got a quote from our local fancy custom line shop for braided stainless made from my original fittings but baulked at the price ($140) and the lack of originality, then decided the original one was in good enough shape and installed it on the clutch cylinder.

subframe bushings rear 2 857199419B discontinued
A friend pointed out that I could used the Audi 80 M12 version with a 10mm sleeve so I went on a quest for those. They proved only marginally less rare than what I need so I orderded two proper ones from Audi Tradition. They have to be shipped to my friend in Germany and then to me so probably 2017 before I see them LOL

belt alternator 1 055903137G 9.5x850
This can wait. I'm tired.

front brake line 2 433837400A
Hours more research and all I could find were aftermarket braided stainless or some really inexspensive rubber ones from Centric. I've ordered both. The centric ones look like the real deal apart from not having the rubber dongles on though it does have two mounting grommets. The OE mounting grommet should slide off over the ends if one of these doesn't work but there's no way the big rubber dongles will. I have a few spares from our 83 so will cut one and see if it is possible to glue them back together over the Centric lines.

 

Finally got chance to install the rear subframe bushings. To be fair I did have to wait for them to come from Germany. I might havre to wait for another one now. Read on.........

Easily removed the old bushings and cleaned up the holes.


But my previous method of pressing them in failed



So got the press out but that didn't help




Now the bushing is all squished




It seems that a) these bushing won't squeeze into a hole the same diameter as the body and b) why did the front ones press in so easily?