The Project Pad

I need to update that list with nla parts like the crank damper and also all the hardware I got. Unfortunately I didn't get ALL the hardware, and I won't be able to make the list complete becuase I won't be the one doing the job and therefore verifying the parts used.

I'll work on cleaning up the list soon and make a thread for it.

Today I got more washer fluid and the system is now leak free but the nozzles seem a bit clogged. The sad thing is that they are almost brand new so I'll have to find a way to clean them.

I think I've determined that the noise I'm hearing from the front of the car is the hydraulic pump, but I think that was done recently. Still, I will have the t belt done because like k2exoman, although the belt only has 20k on it, it's been 5 years since it was done last. It's nice to know is new and fresh!

Wow Chris, I really love your 200 ! Those last pictures are so great, love the colour !

About the windshield shade, you can consider using one for the rear window aswell, Avant tend to "suck" a lot of heat from there considering the angle.
I have no picture (since I reused it for another car in between) but I made one from "insulating reflective stuff" works really fine (here I bought it as "Garage Insulating stuff" with air bubble to keep it rigid) !
Here's the kind of material I used (yeah I went for the "not a single sun ray in my car" version when car has to sit outside for a while)

Thank you! I love your window treatments I was going to order custom versions of that for my Cayenne before I sold it. I don't think anyone has a pattern for this car, so I may have to make my own! I would definitely like one for the rear hatch at least. Great job there!

You could totally live in it like that

@Chris : And on the plus side, it costs like nothing and since those "bubble-designed" are quite rigid, for the side windows, you won't need to add a "suction-thing" to hold it.

ringbearer wrote:You could totally live in it like that

Definitely ! I did try a few times, you just have to add a decent mattress and a sleeping bag and then you have a tent which is rain proof, with roof lights, a good stereo and you can even watch the stars if you have a sunroof !

loxxrider wrote:The steering damper is all oily... I can't see anything around it that could be causing that, so I believe it is probably bad. My records show that it was replaced at some point, but I'm not sure exactly when. I think it is at least 10 years old and 70k+ miles old, so why not replace it! P/N 4A0425021 (this is the only one I can find when searching in the parts stores online anyway... the Audi replacement is very expensive at over $200... Febi makes one for around $50).

Is the Audi Fox damper compatible? Not sure on going rate but I know the UrS-car crowd uses them...
http://forums.quattroworld.com/s4s6/msgs/24321.phtml

Wonder if the Mercedes damper is the right size? They're about $40 and more robust than the OEM.
FunkWeasel used one on his small chassis build.
http://www.motorgeek.com/viewtopic.php?p=577759

I think that was discussed earlier and it should fit.

I'm definitely going to be sleeping in this car next time I go to Carlisle

Updates:

Some maintenance items were checked off the list this past week at ~229k while I was on my trip to Central Europe.

-Timing belt, water pump, idler, and related
-Thermostat
-heater core
-blower motor

There were some bumps in the road, but all-in-all it was a success.

There was a sound coming from the front of the engine which I thought was from the idler. Then I listened some more and thought it seemed to be coming from the power steering pump. Well, it is gone now after this service, so either it was the idler or one of the accessory belts was not tensioned properly. Either way, it's much better sounding

Now I have properly working AC too! I was having trouble getting it to blow out of the correct vents and I checked for vac leaks everywhere I could. I couldn't find any and started to suspect that it might be something to do with the blower motor not blowing. It seems that the pressure differential over the flaps due to volume of air flow may sometimes be needed to help them actuate properly. It blows like a hurricane now compared to before lol. Eventually it just seized altogether which is why I had this service done. I can survive without AC in the summer, but I'm not so sure about not having heat in the winter!

I also had a problem with the windshield wiper hitting the trailing edge of the hood. I had the shop take a look at it while they had the cowl off and they found a loose bolt on the wiper linkage somewhere. That solved the excessive play in the wiper actuation. However, the passenger wiper was still hitting the hood, so I adjusted that today. I tried adjusting the linkage itself and it mountings several times to no avail. Adjusting the wiper arm itself was proving to be difficult due to the spines formed in the wiper arm after being pressed onto the splined shaft. Every time I would try to adjust it to a slightly different position, it would just fall back into one of the old spline grooves once I tightened it up. Ultimately I had to "erase" the old spline marks on the wiper arm with a dremel and it went into position nicely after that. Now I just need to touch up the paint on that area of the hood and we'll be good as new.

I still have a problem with the washer nozzles. I have made sure the crappy plumbing to them is leak-free and that the pump is moving plenty of fluid, but they seem to be clogged up. The thing is, they are new as of earlier this year! I'm thinking maybe they just need to be adjusted. There is a special tool for that, but I hope I can figure out a way to adjust them without it.

The carbon timing cover I bought was ruined unfortunately. It is installed on the car, but the timing gear rubs on it a bit. I believe this is due to poor tolerancing of the grommet holes (I have new grommets) and also not deep enough of a pocket for the gear to sit in. It has now cracked where the gear rubs it due to excessive heat.

Also, my crank cog didn't fit. I guess the holes were slightly off. So we had to get one from Marc. Glad to have the peace of mind. Thanks for over-nighting that Marc.

Finally, I have been trying to solve my sunroof problems. I thought I had it licked last night because some parts of its "timing" mechanism were out of alignment. I aligned it according to procedure and it helped, but it still stops when it isn't supposed to. I'm about 95% sure this has something to do with the "stop" switches which tell the motor when the sunroof is fully open or closed and shut the motor off. It does seem to do some weird clicking at times though which comes from the relay, so there is a chance that it could be the relay or the motor itself. I will inspect more today.

Oh and also my rad fan comes on whenever I have the key on now... Now that I think about it, I think maybe someone connected the MFTS connectors wrongly. I will check that now.

Slowly but surely we are reaching perfection!

Ah, just thought of one more thing... I suspected that the front struts were blown or partially blown. Well, when they did the work behind the cowl they had to take the strut bar off and this strut bar is unique in that it is the thing which holds the struts into the tower. Well, apparently one or both of the struts just dropped down into it's body when they did that which is obviously not what is supposed to happen lol. So new struts will be on the list at some point. I will probably wait until my strut mounts are finished though.

... and I need a trans mount.

I think that's all for now

Sucks about the CF belt cover, I was thinking of getting one of those. Perhaps I should order the one that fits aftermarket pulleys for the extra clearance with the stock one?

For extra clearance with a stock pulley? It might not be a bad idea. The thing is, there is a lot of slop in the grommet holes so while it isn't quite deep enough, it also leaves a big gap around the belt area which makes it really easy for rocks and such to get inside. I can take a picture if you'd like to see what I'm talking about. I'm not happy with it at all from a functional standpoint. It does look great though!

If I were to do it again, I'd just use a stock cover and cut out a hole for the pulley nice and tight so nothing can get in easily (unless it enters from the face of the gear which is pretty unlikely). If you want the look, but proper fitment you could always apply CF as an overlay over a stock cover! lol

Good to see an update! I sometimes forget these things are actually supposed to have functional A/C. Is yours converted to R-134a or still running R12?

For the sunroof, are the wiring and/or connectors for the stop switches in any way accessible? You could try to bypass them temporarily to confirm that that's the issue (that is, if an open circuit is what stops the motor; I don't have the schematics in front of me).

Yes, I do have access to all of that and that's what I was planning to do actually. I just have to figure out a way to do it cleanly and in a non-permanent fashion.

I started doing some small rust repair too. I'll post pics of that soon. The car doesn't have it bad anywhere, but it sent to nip these kinds of things in the butt while it's still easy to deal with!

Oh and yes it's r134.

This thing is looking awesome Chris! I'm quite jealous. Are you planning on pulling the motor and going through it any time soon?

jcarrick wrote:This thing is looking awesome Chris! I'm quite jealous. Are you planning on pulling the motor and going through it any time soon?

Nope, definitely not. I don't see any reason to honestly. There isn't nearly enough time for that either with my schedule. If that ever did happen though, I'd put some rods in and maybe have it honed, re-ringed, new main and rod bearings, and have the head built by Jeff Gerner. That's about all I'd do though. I'm about 95 percent sure that'll never happen though and I'll just end up with a bigger turbo and vems on the stock (not tired at all) engine.

Foscora wrote:@Chris : And on the plus side, it costs like nothing and since those "bubble-designed" are quite rigid, for the side windows, you won't need to add a "suction-thing" to hold it.

ringbearer wrote:You could totally live in it like that

Definitely ! I did try a few times, you just have to add a decent mattress and a sleeping bag and then you have a tent which is rain proof, with roof lights, a good stereo and you can even watch the stars if you have a sunroof !

два человека в полный рост))) вполне комфортно

For those who are too lazy for google translate, he said "Two people full-length. Is quite comfortable."

That's awesome man! We should have a wagon bed picture thread lol

Haha this is the biggest reason I want an Avant!

Things have been going well with the avant, but I have been getting a humming sound coming from something rated to steering. My first thought was that the hydraulic steering fluid was low,but it was completely full.

Then I found that the pitch of the humming does not change with engine rpm or road speed. It also does it more when inputting steering effort to the left rather than to the right. I couldn't find any other way to change it except that when I push the brakes a bit and engage the hydraulic brake assist, it will quiet the him down for a few minutes. This has stirred thoughts of the bomb being bad, but I don't know exactly how that might be related I'll do more digging in time, but if anyone else has suggestions I'm all ears.

If it ever had hydraulic lines replaced, some of the new lines have an 'incorrect' damper in them that causes the line to vibrate and make noise.

Good to know. I wonder if it hurts anything? And yes it has had them replaced.

As I was sitting in a touchless car wash yesterday I was thinking to myself that I ought to give an update on the car here. I was thinking there wasn't much to say other than that the car has been doing very well and that I just had my winter tires fitted (this is my first season ever using them). Then the wash started.

To my extreme dismay, the car started leaking everywhere when the high pressure jets came on. It leaked all around the sunroof area, along the tops of the door areas, and down the A-pillars (and in the hatch hinge area which I had noted a leak in before)... profusely!

I have come to the conclusion that the issue is clogged sunroof drains. I will look in my Bentley manuals to see if there is any advice there, but if you guys have any advice specific to a t44 avant, I'm all ears!

I'm currently looking for a place to coat the underside of the car with oil, but haven't had any luck yet. My only other project on the horizon for the year is to get a block heater rigged up. Can anyone tell me which coolant line one should be installed inline with?

I would probably put the coolant heater in the heater core lines since they are pre-thermostat. I have the one in my TDI in the oil cooler feed lines, but you dont have that option.

Maybe the leak is just because of the high pressure sideways water, doesnt necessarily mean it will leak when it rains.

As for undercoating, I am 100% sold on fluid film. Love the stuff, the application kit is $100 and its $40 a gallon. Comes with wands to get inside cavities. Its good shit.

There are people spread around who apply it professionally.

Thanks Dana. I just went outside to check a few things on the car and tried stuffing some weedwacker line down the sunroof drains. It went in fairly smoothly for most of the way, but then I think the line bunched up before it would make it all the way through. I tried it from both ends of the tubes, and it made it more than half-way through as far as I could tell (based on the length of the cord used and by listening for it in the A-pillars). So I think they might have just gotten overwhelmed with water and couldn't drain it fast enough in that wash. Or maybe like you said it had to do with the high pressure and funky angles. I haven't ever noticed any funky smell in this car, so I hope this hypothesis is correct!

I'll look into the fluid film. Thanks!

I'll have to take a look at the heater core lines to see where it could fit, but thanks for the suggestion.

When I was out there, I noticed a leak which tasted ( ) like coolant. It is coming from the turbo coolant drain line where it goes into the block. I guess maybe the freeze plug it goes into is leaking. Not a job I want to do. Maybe I should upgrade to an EFR while I'm in there? Yeah... no. Time to buy a house in 2016. There will be no modification love for this car save for maybe VEMS.

A list of things to do/fix soon on this car:

-Fix freeze plug leak
-install block heater
-Fix power steering hum (incorrect damper installed in the line?)
-Get alignment (it pulls to the right a little after fitting the winter tires)
-Get oil undercoating applied
-Front suspension work
-New struts (not sure if I'm going to go with stock or rebuilt Konis. I'm fine with the damping I'll get with Konis, but I'm not sure if I want the shorter throw)
-2.5" coil springs and various coilover parts needed (I'll probably go with something equivalent to the current sport springs)
-My new strut mounts (whenever they get made)
-Air cups

The intention will be to revitalize the front suspension while allowing major, yet more difficult adjustability through the coilovers, but also emergency lifting capabilities at the flip of a switch with the air cups. This is a no-compromise solution (except for being an additional cost and mass). I would try to machine some myself because it'd be a fun project, but I found some which are so reasonably priced that it wouldn't really be worth me wasting my time to make my own. If I had a bigger lathe and not so much on my plate right now, I'd totally do it. My little mini lathe doesn't really like cutting aluminum over a few inches in diameter without being a pain to work with. It's great for delrin though lol.

Oh and on a different note, this car runs pretty damned amazingly well in the cold weather. I get especially surprised when I take all of my rig crap out of the back of it. It's at least a few hundred pounds worth of stuff and it makes a huge difference!