Just wanted to do a quick update to this thread. At the end of thanksgiving, we were able to pick up a Coupe GT as a parts donor for the UrQ.
Overall the car was in great shape, but it had more wrong with it than it was worth fixing according to the PO so away it went.
Some random pix of the car getting loaded up and stored:
(my dad loading up the car)
Over christmas, we decided it was time to start tearing into the 'ol girl so it wasn't taking up space in our storage village.
Well once Christmas had come and passed, it was time for us to pick 'ol girl up and get it home for us to start hacking into. I had estimated it would take us ~4 days to get it torn down, packed up and sent off to the scrapper (started friday, gone by tuesday). I should have put $$ on it w/ my dad (who didn't believe me mind you) as I was pretty much spot on! Took a lot of back breaking for the 3 of us, but we got it done!
So on
Friday after xmas we went to snag the 'ol girl. We had thought about pulling it back up onto the trailer and towing it home, but since the car didn't run and there is no winch on the trailer, and we really didn't feel like pulling it onto the trailer w/ something else w/ all the ice/snow everywhere, loading it was easiler said than done. So instead... we went the redneck way. 2 pickups and a tow rope
Here's the rig. My brother pulled me w/ his ranger as I piloted the coupe. We had about a 3 mile trip back to my folks house, but there were some obstacles. First being, we had to go down a relatively busy road and down/up a relatively steep hill.
Venturing out of the storage village:
My dad following us w/ the plow truck:
Trip down the hill:
As we made the venture down the hill, things got a lil bit hairy at times... or felt that way at least. I basically was braking for both the Coupe and my brother's ranger while going down this hill to keep tension on the rope. AAs we decended the hill, there were times when I would accidentally catch up with him, causing slack in the rope. This was when things got disconcerting, because when the rope went tight again, it would really jerk the coupe and make it wag around a LOT! This was augmented b/c the panhard bar was gone from the rear axle, so it was shifting a few inches each direction depending on where I was turning, and apparently the front wheels were barely held on by 2 lug nuts... lol. oopsy!
But... we made it to the bottom w/o issue:
and after another mile or so of driving, into the driveway we went!
Now came the next hurdle... getting the car in the garage!! Our driveway has a downward grade (away from the garage) to it, which makes pushing a 2900lb car UP it a VERY difficult task... even w/ 3 of us! So... with a redneck in mind... we put the plow to use
Should I be submitting this to Jeff Foxworthy for my redneck back yard? :-P
After a little effort and aiming, we were able to push the 'ol girl to her next to final resting place... poor thing doesn't even know what's about to happen to it
Since time was short, we started tearing into the 'ol girl right away. The interior (seats, etc) got pulled and my dad and I started in on the trunk to start freeing up the wiring harness:
and the pile starts to grow:
after about 4ish hrs we called it quits for Friday... leaving the 'ol girl like this:
Yup, that mess of wires is the harness behind the dash. And yes, that is ice you see as well. The guy we got the car from had the driver's window out and did a bad job of taping up the window, so there was about 2" of water in the foot wells, which then turned to ice in the cold weather. Was good for a laugh, but we nearly took out 3 gallons of water once it thawed!!!
Regardless, we labeled EVERYTHING since this harness will be making it's way into the UrQ in the future. Since it might be a year or so, we overly labeled everything to remind ourselves what goes where incase it slips our mind.
On
Saturday we started to really tear into the 'ol girl. The motor got pulled and the interior started getting even more taken out of it. We had a lil party Saturday evening, so work was cut short... but we still got a LOT off the car.
Me crawling around the engine bay disconnecting various things... guinea chain and all:
And how things were looking by the end of Saturday:
Yup... the pile kept growing!!!
Interior shot:
As we pulled the car apart, it became more and more evident that the car had been sitting for some time. One of the big hints was that it had a rejection sticker from 1999!! On top of that, I swear there was an entire Maple tree worth of leaves and seeds in this car. Everywhere you turned, there were piles and piles of maple leaves and seeds... some even made it into the skeleton of the hood, which seems physically impossible (holes/openings in the skeleton are only pointed down)!
In addition to the vegitation, this car had hundreds of stink bugs! I mean hundreds! Lil bastards were even fornicating in the doors trying to make more!!
They were quickly squished
But no matter where you turned, what you moved, or where you looked... nose to tail, this car was FULL of these things. Made my skin crawl everytime I saw one... yick.
As
Sunday came about, things were looking to progress even further. The wiring harness was all but out of the car by the end of Saturday, so after disconnecting a few more things, we had success:
Yup, that's a 100% fully labeled uncut harness. I just hope it goes back into the car as cleanly as it came out!! :-P
After keeping my dad out in the garage until 11-1130 Sunday night, this is how the car looked by Sunday evening:
On
Monday it was time to start packing up and finishing off the poor CGT.
My brother and I started off laying out the harness so we could attach it to a sheet of plywood to keep it organized and out of the way:
My brother then spent some time coiling the harness and attaching it to the 4x8 piece of plywood. We then hung it up so it's safely stored away until it's needed:
And then it was time for sparks to start flying... beware, this is graffic:
and after a fair bit more cutting, I got both horns off:
It's amazing how quickly a sawzaw can hack through these cars! I took a LOT more material than we really need for the UrQ, but I figured I'd get as much as possible and let the body guy take what he needs when it comes time to start fixing the rusty areas.
Also, some of the rear frame rail was rusting out on the urQ, so out came the trunk floor as well!
I went through about 3 blades (not that bad in the grand scheme of things) cutting through this stuff... but it was a LOT easier than going at it w/ an angle grinder.
By monday night, it was time to get the 'ol girl out of the garage. At this point, I could easily pick up the front of the car w/ the back wheels on the ground... so w/ the car in this state, we basically wheel-barrelled the car onto the trailer... lol. Kind of hard to see in this pic (the reflectors on the side of the trailer really screwed w/ the camera), but you get the idea:
Come
Tuesday morning... this is how the 'ol girl looked all loaded up
A bit different from when it first arrived after Thanksgiving!!
in all of it's horror:
And the parts getting laid out:
All the parts to the left of the trailer are what I'm putting up for sale from the car (listed on Audifans for those of you interested
). I was trying to organize what we had and snap pix while it was light out.
At this point... it was time to finish loading up the CGT w/ the remaining parts we didn't need and take it to her final resting place. If you have a weak stomach, this is really gonna make you gag!
We had a local scrapyard about 8 or so miles from home, so my brother and I made the trip out to drop off the CGT on her final ride.
When we got there we weighed in and proceeded to the pile of scrap... where this guy was kind enough to relieve us of our load:
He proceded to slam it into the pile of garbage where this guy then grabbed the 'ol girl and tossed her into the crusher :( It was really a sad sight... similar to the scene in
Gone in 60 seconds where elanor was thrown on the scrapper belt.
At this point my brother and I started to hop into the truck to head out. I think the operator noticed we were snapping pix as they took the car off, so he started waving at me and gave me a signal to "wait a minute." It then dawned on me that the crusher was almost done. After another min or so, the lid opened and out popped the poor CGT... all $31.25 worth:
Poor car led a good life, but will now be melted down, and hopefully re-incarnated as a red R8 or the like!
On Tuesday night, we started the cataloging and boxing of all the parts, but I just didn't have the energy to complete everything and time was running out as I was leaving Wed morning to head on my way to my New Years festivities.
But I was able to get the majority of things boxed up:
The boxes from our record storage business proved to be a great asset! Held a good amount of parts, and nice clean surfaces to label so I know what's in what box! I'll probably go dig through the Castrol GTX boxes of parts that came w/ the UrQ and swap them over to these boxes as they're that much nicer to deal with... that and I really need to figure out what kinda goodies we have in those boxes... lol.
And here's a pic of the storage room in our basement where we'll be stocking the parts until they're needed:
These are all the seals we kept from the CGT. Unfortunately the only thing that didn't survive from the car that we needed/wanted was the windshield :( It unfortunately cracked when we were working in the car due to work light that was resting on the glass. It apparently got too hot and the glass cracked because of it. Real waste too as it was an authentic Audi windshield and was in GREAT shape. oh well, life goes on I guess..
But that's about it. Figured I'd share the carnage w/ all of you. It was a $hit ton of work, but it'll be worth it when the time comes to bring the UrQ back to life. My dad was also quite impressed we were able to dismantle the car as efficiently as we did. He's still doing some clean-up, but overall they have use of 2 of the 3 car garage. That means my mom's car isn't parked outside in the cold, which will at least appease her until he can finish cleaning out the 3rd bay this week.
So that's about it! Hope you enjoyed the show.
Allen should be thrilled. I kinda talked him outta buying this car.
