The Project Pad

Nice job rebuilding that hose. I need to get the tools to do that.

I pulled off the air filter cover, and what I found was nuts!



Some maintenance items sorted:
- Air filter (Bosch 73352)
- Spark plugs (OEM Bosch 7411)
- Fuel filter (Mann WK725) - The old one was OEM Audi with a 1997 stamp date!

Also pulled the cluster and took it all apart. It's annoyingly different than the 200's, so I don't think I can remove the main board from the plastic without desoldering a flex cable tying it to another board. Found the little 15-tooth odo gear broken, as is tradition!

loxxrider wrote:Nice job rebuilding that hose. I need to get the tools to do that.

It's pretty fun to do, actually! I used OTC 6504 and it worked beautifully. The kit comes with different sizes, too, so I might redo the fuel lines, which aren't looking 100%.

PRY4SNO wrote:Yay, fix one thing find something else that's broken haha

Haha, seems that's how it always goes. Luckily the issues usually get smaller and more insignificant until you don't care about them or the rabbit hole ends.

At long last, I was able to get some progress done with das V8! Admittedly, I didn't actually do much real work for all the time spent with the car, but I got to know the car and its quirks much better.

The filthy engine bay was cleaned up in order to discover that the valve covers are leaking pretty badly. That, plus a massive puff of blue smoke at startup means I'm doing my part to keep Chris steadily employed! I will tackle the valve stem seals when I do the timing belt, though, so better stay on your toes.

On to the interior! The cluster is currently ripped apart to fix the non-functioning gauges. I'm looking for a pin-out for the cluster in order to trace down why the fuel gauge is always pegged. Anyone know what pins I can use to check the resistance of the sender circuit? I'm having trouble tracing it visually from the gauge.

Other things done:
- Replaced odometer gear and set to estimated 210,000 miles
- Cleaned corrosion off all interior lights - now working!
- All doors now lock (driver's door wasn't physically connected; nothing broken )
- Cleaned up some shoddy wiring
- Replaced cracked wood trim
- Disassembled passenger window regulator - I could not for the life of me find why it didn't work. No detected short or open circuits. The switch supplied the correct voltage, the cable was intact and would move the window if I spun the motor manually. I even checked the contacts of the motor itself, but found nothing! So that was a bust, but at least now I know it's not such a daunting task as I originally thought.






Mmmmmmm... Frameless.


I've now got a few parts on order. VC gaskets, bulbs for the cluster, a new blower motor (which worked great for approximately half of our first test drive before making a horrible grinding noise), and a heater core while I'm in there. She should be ready for daily duty soon!

I just need to figure out this low power issue. Further testing has revealed this: It drives 100% fine for the first minute. Then it bogs down and does the super slow thing for 2 minutes, before it wakes up and it's fine for the rest of the drive. Every single cold start.

Before you get too deep into the cluster have you checked to make sure the sender is outputting a nice variable resistance? A pegged gauge makes me think sender, an inop gauge would make me think cluster.

I agree! I checked the gauge with a battery, and it works fine. I couldn't find any shorts on the cluster circuit board, so I'd suspect something in the sender circuit. I dunno what pins to check or what the value should be, though. I only have a repair manual for the 200, which has a different cluster.

There is a downloadable V8 manual. It's all there but pages are occasionally way out of order.
Let me find it and I'll post

I found it here...
http://www.motorgeek.com/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=54387

edi:
Looks like this link is dead.
PM me your address and I'll send you a cd with the files on it if you like

Wow, thanks! I really appreciate it, man! I've been searching for a while, but I couldn't find it - probably cause I was searching for schematics rather than the manual.

Edit to your edit: I actually managed to download it just fine, but I appreciate the offer

Oh cool! Enjoy

Thanks for doing your part to keep me working lol. Great idea to do the heater core at the same time as the blower motor. It gives me a lot of peace of mind in the winter to have that new one in there!

When I recently did my passenger rear window reg I found the motor to be completely inoperable as well. I just replaced the motor with a spare one I had and all was well. It's nice to have a few on hand! I did start to tear it apart to figure out why it wasn't working, but never finished. I suspect there must be a way to repair them... Did you just not end up fixing that window?

I think a wideband would be a prudent purchase for you. You'll need one for your future standalone purchase anyway and it would help you diagnose this issue with the V8 I think.

In for results on reverse engineered window regulator repair results.

I'll look into diagnosing the window reg again, because I didn't quite get a chance to test everything I wanted to. On the plus side, I've got 3 dead windows to play with! Will post updates if I find anything.

I'll definitely look into a WB02, though the car could probably also use a new OEM one, too. That is, assuming I can't modify a WB output to both make the ECU happy and provide useful data. Different signals, as I gather from a quick search.

Another piece of the puzzle presents itself! Started the V8 up today and it ran fine for a bit - then it began misfiring like a drunken sniper.

In fact, it was so bad that, I'd guess half the engine wasn't firing. This was confirmed when I unplugged the passenger side coil and it had no effect. Unplugging driver's killed the engine. So now I have to investigate whether it's the distributor, the coil, or the wire connecting the two.

Coil type things like to act up depending on temperature... Could certainly be the case here.

Yeah I would absolutely point towards coil+heat

Well the interesting thing is that it has never come back. Ordinarily, I'd think heat, too, but it was just after a lap around the neighborhood. Could the fact that it rained the entire week prior have any effect on the coil/dizzy?

I can confirm that distributors don't like to get wet. My first car was an '82 Honda Accord and for a while there every time it rained the car wouldn't start. But if I took the distributor cap off and dried everything off it would start. I can't remember now how I eventually fixed it or how it was getting wet (it was 25 years ago)

I put a new cap and wires on the geo metro I had after it wouldn't start after a rain. That fixed it, but it does eventually come back. Stupid shit.

Thanks guys, and I'm sorry I didn't respond until now! However, your input did lead me try and replicate it by setting the car out in the rain for a week, to no avail. The V8 has actually been running fairly well ever since I cleaned the TPS, including a lack of the low power thing.

This, of course, was before I took a little break from car stuff to spend time with my family and friends. Coming back today, it's very clear that electrical issues are the name of the game.



WARNING! This is NO interesting content below! For the sake of brevity, I've highlighted the important stuff, but I've got quite a few issues that need sorting.

- Charging system. I had to jump the car and it promptly died halfway around the neighborhood. It would only stay alive if I kept it revved up, so I'm hoping it's just the voltage regulator. I towed it home with the 200 and currently have it hooked up to a battery charger.

- Internal short in the cluster. It's supplying 10.8V to the fuel gauge at all times the black 26-pin connector is plugged in. I traced the source to pin 19 (a 12v supply pin). I tried to follow it visually, but it branches off far too often and through several integrated circuits, so it's frankly over my head. I think I just need to buy another cluster. I removed the pin for the moment to keep from draining the battery, but now half the gauges don't work.

- Corrosion on switch contacts. Haha, learned this when I went for full wiper power and they just stopped.

-ABS pump makes noise. Around 80% of the time the ignition is turned on, you can hear it whirring it away. No idea what it means, but I don't like it.

Anyone know how to bleed the ABS pump? It seems... daunting.

I'd like to replace the brake line that runs to the rear, but it wouldn't hurt to bleed the pump anyways, because the ABS has been very finicky.

The first day of snow here in Erie was SCARY! My ABS button was nonfunctional and I tried to stop at an intersection that was not even icy and I "slid" halfway through it. It was as if the system needed a test run first? It works alright now for some reason. Switch was replaced just in case tho

Now that's finicky and deadly. Hope yours doesn't behave like that lol.

I'm just guessing but maybe that whirring pump will make it possible for you to bleed that one line with a flexible line run from its outlet back to the reservoir. After that a quick connecting of the detached brake line and a line bleed may get you golden. Just like doing a MC we hope.

Huh! I dunno why Tapatalk suddenly just stopped notifying me of anything.

Yeah, there's a few thing with the ABS I need to check out. The "Antilock Off" is lit with the cluster now installed. Dunno if that's because the cluster is freaking out, or if the car is trying to tell me something, but pressing the button does nothing. I may try the 200's switch.

Also the brake pedal is still rather mushy. MUCH better than before, but I'm convinced there's air in the line somewhere that I intend to fully remove when I get to replacing the brake line. I have zero experience with ABS, though. Mine has always worked. I don't even know how exactly it works, other than intuitively, so I need to research how the internals do their thing to get a better understanding of how to bleed and repair the system.

There is no special bleeding procedure for the ABS on these cars. Just bleed it like you normally would, a motive power bleed certainly helps though.

If the anti-lock off light is on that means the ABS is turned off do to a fault within the system the most common being rusted tone rings on the outer CV's or bad ABS sensor. Could also just be a bad or stuck ABS relay.

The automatic V8q needs to have functioning ABS for the center diff lockup to work properly.

yodasfro wrote:There is no special bleeding procedure for the ABS on these cars. Just bleed it like you normally would, a motive power bleed certainly helps though.

If the anti-lock off light is on that means the ABS is turned off do to a fault within the system the most common being rusted tone rings on the outer CV's or bad ABS sensor. Could also just be a bad or stuck ABS relay.

The automatic V8q needs to have functioning ABS for the center diff lockup to work properly.

Excellent info, Yoda, thank you! I'll have a look this weekend to see if I can track down one of things you mentioned.

It's been a while since I updated, so I figured I'd pop in and say hello. This wasn't really supposed to be a project car, but I find it quite hard to resist fixing little things as I use it as my daily. Not so much because they bother me, but I realize I just really like fixing stuff.

A new blower motor and heater core were installed using an OSHA approved extraction method. The heat works great now, just in time for summer


Red valve covers! +50 hp!


In my one-armed state, I've also been taking care of a bunch of electrical doodads and blah blah blah nothing noteworthy.

Interior lights work again, I now have TWO working windows, and a nearly full complement of working gauges! More exciting progress to follow as I regain the ability to crawl under the car.

Now, for anyone going to Carlisle, I have a task for you: If you see my dad around (tall, German, makes jokes lamer than mine), you have to make sure to tell him that a manual V8 is THE car to have, and he should immediately divert funds to such a project, regardless of how often he actually drives it. Seriously, like, better than his S4, better than a 911, better than a flame-spitting S1! Should be easy.