Pretty stoked right now.
I find when I'm attempting some of these jobs for the first time that you people are a little modest about the difficulty level. Like when I did the steering rack. That was retarded hard.
Pulling this engine wiring harness? Seemed like a cake walk. Little did I know when I started, I was about to undertake a job at the (near-)expert difficulty level. Having already done so before on a B6A4 and C4S4 (where I did the full chassis and engine harnesses on both) I didn't think there was such a gap in engineering. Boy, was I wrong.
As previously mentioned, the ABS pump begrudgingly came out to make room to pull the harness through the firewall.
The fuse panel can either come up into the engine bay, or down. In my case, the interior wiring was tangled so bad there was no room to go up. Down into the foot well it went. From there wires were traced and plugs labeled and disconnected. Slowly. With many episodes of frustration and Tourette's Syndrome along the way.
So you have to pull the heater core. As Austin (so typically) correctly pointed out on Motorgeek, it's probably best to pull the whole thing vs. trying to unclasp the top and bottom halves. So many clips, in so many asinine locations. Why, Audi? Why? None of the DIYs I could find mentioned you need to undo the gear clamp and Allen bolt at the AC lines through the firewall as well as the two screws holding down the cabin filter.
Once that's out there's pulling the ECU loom behind the carpet and finding every last factory wiring ty-wrap, the hard way. If I were more patient and much better at deciphering wiring diagrams in the Bentley, this probably would have been much more straightforward. I'm not, so it wasn't. Some phantom wire connector was tucked into the door jamb and left bare. Not sure what it was, or why it was left there to dangle, but felt like a waste of time. Glad I didn't cut it though. PN 883971685N Any info about that would be handy, TIA.
The ground on the d/s A-pillar was a bitch. My wrenches were too thick to back up a ratchet. So I plundered my woman's Mickey Mouse tool kit and was lucky to find a 3/8" (not a 9mm to be found between us) wrench thin enough to hold the inside nut.
From there I found (what I believe to be) the diff lock needed disconnecting and eventually fished it under the carpet and underlay. I gave the two halves of the connector the label 'Z' because I couldn't remember where the other ones at the fuse panel left off in alphabetical order haha.
All in all, I'm glad it's done and if I'm not mistaken,
I'm about ready to start REINSTALLING parts for the first time in forever.Pics for clicks.
" and cut it all. Two HD mechanic friends had suggested so, independently. One has a Coupe and UrS4. The other is a Subaru/Volvo guy. I was this_close to doing a Painless harness with a Milspec bulkhead connector, but that kind of development reeks of v2, not v1.
Next pair get taken in for processing in early December. Yay cashflow. And bacon. Definitely bacon.