The Project Pad

Okay, ECU is out. Looks like my misunderstanding came from rotating perpendicular to the axis of the pins, instead of parallel in a counterclockwise rotation, IE going toward me instead of going upwards.



With that done, I took to removing the dash.

Initially I'd intended to avoid doing so (having read somewhere or another that it was doable), but looking at everything it seems best to pull the dash and ensure proper routing/mounting of the wiring harness. Not to mention properly mounting VEMS in that cramped spot between the heater core & firewall. I'd think, anyways.

Right now, I'm about 80% there, need to figure out how to remove the loom for the centre console switches. Any tips or BTDT advice is always appreciated.

In other news, behold! The first new part to be officially installed on the car in... years. JHM billet shifter.

All the bolts on the dashboard are out, and it would appear removal is being held up by the big wiring loom on the driver's side by the door. Any tips or tricks are greatly appreciated. Is this the point it's best to pull the harness from the engine bay? I was hoping to do that after the dash was out. The Bentley says to remove the ground wire (left side of the second pic... I think), so I'm going to head out now and try that.

PRY4SNO wrote:In other news, behold! The first new part to be officially installed on the car in... years. JHM billet shifter. :drool

Least you can row through the gears and make race car sounds now

Have no experience with Coupe’ dashes but the harness for the TT I parted was spaghetti'd through & clipped to every bit of metal & plastic under there... didn’t happen in one swoop that’s for sure. Exercise in patience mostly.

All_Euro wrote:Have no experience with Coupe’ dashes but the harness for the TT I parted was spaghetti'd through & clipped to every bit of metal & plastic under there... didn’t happen in one swoop that’s for sure. Exercise in patience mostly.

You're right, of course.

Tonight I got the harness snaked thru the A/C and fuel hard lines crammed under the battery tray to the point where it's ready to come out as one piece through the firewall.

Marc was a big help motivating me to just dig in and fight the good fight.

Marc wrote:starter lead and starter "on" signal wire need to stay, so does all the alternator related control stuff. transmission speed sensor and reverse switch stuff also stays.

they are discrete harnesses, best to pull through the firewall and lay it out so you can see where they interconnect before cutting anything. be patient. breathe in and out. resist the temptation to go hog wild with the cutters

Made some good progress last night. Not as much as I'd have liked, but, things are moving along.

Had to snip the metal ties that were securing the heat shielding on the starter and oil temp sender wires just to get everything thru the hard fuel lines and AC lines below the battery tray. That was an aggravating exercise all around. Harness is ready to go thru the firewall, gonna try and leave the ABS pump installed, but... it's gonna be a tight squeeze.

Nice

Been a while... feels like forever, really.

But, I've got a couple weekends of music festivals/concerts under my belt that I wouldn't have missed for the world and some solid progress on the car to show for my time.

Dashboard is finally out. Props to Dave, he linked an AW thread that I would have never thought to look for, and suggested a contrarian method to pull the harness compared to what I was engaged in, which saved a lot of time and frustration. Basically, pull the engine harness from the interior to the engine bay, not the other way around (like on a UrS car). Ben, thanks for the documents and motivation. And to Marc for saving me from just saying "fuck_it " 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.

Had to remove the ABS pump, against my initial protest. Damn thing just obscured everything and made the process more ornery that was necessary.

With that done, I'd enlisted my girlfriend with her small hands and knitter's patience to un-fuck the wiring harness in the rats-nest-from-hell as I fed it through from the firewall. After dropping the fuse panel it only congested the issue more. Following a solid go at things, the engine loom is nearly ready to come out for good.

I'm this_close to installing more new parts. Motivation is beginning to manifest itself again. I'm happy to be spending this time on the car again. It's a big damn deal.

Thanks for reading.

Nice to see you get time to start working - It is remarkable how much wire is under the dash...

FFF wrote:Nice to see you get time to start working - It is remarkable how much wire is under the dash...

Thanks! I try to spend a couple hours a night after work and it all adds up!

Remarkable is definitely a good word. Ten pounds of shit in a five pound bag under there. During the planning phase I'd considered going with a Painless harness. Having been through this once now, I know that I'll definitely do so in the future. Easy place to save weight, and reduce the complexity. I'll also add some kind of MIL-spec bulkhead fitting to make future jobs quicker and easier.



I forgot to link the thread Dave pointed me towards with pulling the dash, it was a valuable resource in addition to the Bentley.
http://www.audiworld.com/forums/audi-90-80-coupe-quattro-cabriolet-22/heater-core-how-2109877/

Glad you've got some motivation back. I can totally understand the frustration. Hell, I was cursing up a storm the other day just trying to get a wideband harness through the firewall and out into the engine bay.

loxxrider wrote:Glad you've got some motivation back. I can totally understand the frustration. Hell, I was cursing up a storm the other day just trying to get a wideband harness through the firewall and out into the engine bay.

Thanks, it seems to have gone full circle. Now that I've got my own place and my garage is up to the task it makes a huge difference in my motivation. I wanna hear turbo noises!

Haha I can definitely agree, I've coined a few choice cursing phrases so far.

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.

this done yet Dustin?

Le sigh... no Matt. It's not.

Life got real busy in February. We bought a small farm about an hour east of the city. Between our full time work schedule in the city, improving the property, and acquiring/tending to the livestock, there's been precious little time to put toward finishing renos on my rental unit in the city. Let alone working on the Coupe, which is still in the garage at the rental... in the city.

But we like the property and change in pace. Just takes some adjustments to realign old priorities with new lifestyle demands.

Here's a few of my favourite photos straight from my phone since we've moved to the farm

Pre-commute view of the greenhouse we built together (with a 20' x 40' shed behind):


Those summer sunsets you run out in your pj's to see:


Feeding the pigs some apples foraged from the property:

Good trade, farm life isn’t the way!

Oh man I hear you on life priorities. Farm looks pretty epic! You have any pet pigs yet? lol

Hope you have some time soon. Your engine is just

ringbearer wrote:Good trade, farm life isn’t the way!

Is...

Thanks for the kind words and support guys. The desire is there, but the logistics have to line up before I can dig in on the reassembly. Plan is to get it going so I can make the trip down for BBQ to meet some of you crazy lot; and the sooner the better.

And Matt, as for "pets," we'll have two pigs ready to pick up from freezer camp and deliver to clients any day now Next pair get taken in for processing in early December. Yay cashflow. And bacon. Definitely bacon.