The Project Pad

the german wrote:

dalspaugh wrote:
Perhaps I'll get a chance to see it! I'm looking at moving out to the seattle region this summer if I can find the right internal transfer with Amazon.

...which reminds me... I need to finish the rally car...

Cool! Let me know if you do- I have a number of friends at Amazon and there is a pretty active bunch of old school AUDI folks out here. I think there is a pretty dedicated rally crowd too!

right on, will do!

this build is full of winning, no matter how well it does, heh

Dan McBoost wrote:this build is full of winning, no matter how well it does, heh

Haha thanks Dan

OK, a bit more progress. Stopped by the local German wrecking yard that is run by a buddy of mine (and fellow fan of old Audi's) to get some missing bits:

-Headlight wiring (got a pair of old B4 lights from Alex, but they were missing the internal wiring)
-Headlight pigtails (B3 to B4 conversion)
-A nearly complete set of Allroad fender flares (Cory's idea, not yet sure if I'll use them)
-Battery
-Horns
-Battery hold-down

For the headlights, there weren't any B4 cars in the yard with broken lights so I ended up with a set of beat up Passat headlights to cannibalize. Interestingly they have the same connector as the B4 lights which is perfect for what I wanted; only difference is an extra pin for the DRL's which I removed.



Passat headlight w/ pigtail


Internal wiring from the Passat lights


Remove the DRL circuit & de-pin the connector


Perfect fit in it's new home




And onto the car! Got some clear corners ordered up from eBay to go with them. Unfortunately it looks like I have some electrical issues to sort out with the lights. The high beams will come on when you pull the column switch toward you (like to flash your lights) but neither the low or high beams will come on full time when you switch them on. Might need to find a good replacement square column stalk.



Next up, horns from an Allroad w/ pigtails. Got them wired in and they work great!



And finally, got the rear subframe all welded up.





Just test fit it back in the car and have the first coat of paint drying on it as I type this. Should be able to final install it in the car in the morning, then maybe do some more suspension and brake work before moving on to the front.

On Easter I had a rather unpleasant surprise with my wife's A4 Avant when I discovered what is apparently a know (but less common) issue on the 2.0T TSI motors: spontaneous timing chain tensioner failure. I was luck enough to bend valves in all 4 cylinders and have zero compression across the board! Luckily my wife is traveling this week so she doesn't need her car, but that doesn't help much for next week when she gets back. In other words: there is a new sense of urgency to getting this thing driving under it's own power so that I can get it out of the garage and make room to do a motor swap on the Avant. And here that car was supposed to be the "reliable" one in the fleet. Shit.

Oh yeah.. anyone have a low mile CAEB in the Seattle area? I'm now in the market.


OK enough bitching and on the last few days progress:

Got the front suspension subframe finished up tonight and painted tonight







Also got the new extended brake lines installed on the car. First car I have had where the caliper can rest on the floor with the car on jack stands.




Back when I first got the car I tried to get it running well enough to go take it for a test drive and see if there was anything wrong I didn't know about. In trying to flush the brake system, I found it absolutely impossible to bleed the brakes. I could pull full vacuum on the caliper bleed port and no fluid would flow through any of the lines and the brake pedal would go to the floor and stay there. I figured I had a bad master cylinder so I abandoned the idea of driving it first and started tearing it apart.

Fast forward to today, and once again I'm playing with brakes. With the soft lines off at each corner, I was sucking the hard lines dry to get all the nasty old crap out of them (and there was a lot) but I still couldn't pull any fluid through the rear lines. Even with the line on the master unscrewed I couldn't get anything, so this left the ABS as the culprit. I swapped the master and brake bias valve with known-good ones off my red CQ and deleted the ABS.



Now I just need another person to help me bleed and they should be set. It's getting closer to driving!

Here they are:
http://www.amazon.com/Motive-Products-B ... eeder+euro

ABS delete in this car... sooooo satisfying. looking good!

Oh and +1 for the motive bleeder, great piece.

I'm going to borrow Alex's motive bleeder; I've been too cheap to buy my own lol

dalspaugh wrote:ABS delete in this car... sooooo satisfying. looking good!

I think I just saved enough weight to offset my front skid plate too ;-)

Even I have a bleeder!!

heartlessnomad12 wrote:Even I have a bleeder!!

Ha! I love that your first post on this forum is giving me shit. Glad you made it over

Getting closer and closer to having it driveable, and discovering things that need to be addressed in the process.

Started off this evening by getting the front subframe installed




Then got the front corner packages assembled. Took some creative jacking to get the axle shafts in their place and the knuckles bolted to the struts but in the end it seems to work just fine. The axles are at their absolute maximum articulation for the inner CV at full droop, and there is a hard interference between the bottom edge of the strut body and the axle shaft. Other than dropping the motor I'm not sure what I can do about that, and after installing the front subframe I realized I didn't leave any room between the rear tube and the trans to drop the motor if I need to. Oops.





Next up, got started on the exhaust. I was originally planning to retain the CAT, but with the rear tube on the spacer subframe it would have to be super low so I decided to forego it. Hopefully I don't have to get a state inspection when I transfer the car title from California to Washington. Worst case scenario I have to weld in much smaller B6 S4 cat I have on the shelf.

The space I have to work with


As far as I got today






Not installed here since it's a PITA to work around when taking this piece in and out to fit it up, but the heat shield for the CV still fits in there.





Last item for the day was cleaning up and painting a set of front control arms I picked up to try using on the rear. The front control arms are a-symmetrical, but the ball joints are offset such that the joint is still in the middle of the arm. Conversely, the rear control arms are symmetrical and the ball joints are offset such that the joint is behind center on the control arm. Since my rear tire is closer than I like to the front of the fender well, my plan is to try using a set of front control arms in the rear with the right and left ball joints swapped to move the wheel back and center it better in the wheel well. I *think* this will give me roughly neutral caster in the rear. We will see if that holds true when I get them installed tomorrow.

You shouldn't have to do anything to transfer titles since it's old. It'll transfer just like a WA car. No inspection

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Well, my new ball joints for the offset rear control arms didn't show up today so I didn't get to put those on. I did however finish up the exhaust, bleed the brakes, and TAKE IT FOR IT'S FIRST DRIVE!!

Without the offset rear control arms the rear tires are rubbing on the bottom edge of the fender liner so I only drove it around the block. First impression was good; everything seemed to work as it should so I'm feeling rather encouraged! It also means I can move it out of the garage and make space for swapping a motor on my wife's car, which was a primary objective for the week.

Exhaust done:


Back on it's wheels for a test drive:




The old checklist is getting a lot shorter! Once I get the suspension sorted I'll move on to fixing up the interior.

Looks right at home in the 'burbs



Moved it out to the street so I could do an oil change on my daily S4 and got a LOT of odd looks from the neighbors as they drove by. LOL

I also broke the car for the first time in the process: popped a circlip off the end of the LF axle shaft and pulled it out of the outboard CV while backing out of the driveway (suspension at full droop and turned hard to the right) so I'll be making some axle spacers to make sure It doesn't happen again.

The new front ball joints showed up today so I was able to test my cunning plan for the rear. I'm happy to report it works *exactly* as expected and centers the rear wheel perfectly in the wheel well. I love it when my silly ideas actually work! The downside is that it toes the wheels in beyond the adjustment range of the rear tie rod, so I'll be making some shorter ones to amend the issue. More fab!











Did some trimming of the front bumper around the wheel well and fit up the front end parts. I'm calling this "Revision A". I also have the pearl B3 underheadlight trim which I want to put on and see how it looks. Mesh grille and ring are held on with zip ties. Ghetto Fabulous bitches.



Also took a little break from the heavy mechanical and fabrication work to do some interior bits. Installed a head unit I had laying around as well as a proper steering wheel. It took some creative modification of the column cover, but in the end it all seems to work great, and most importantly my horn works and is really loud!



Discovered that the exhaust now rubs a bit on the rear prop shaft with the lowered subframe so that will need to be addressed as well.



I'm loving the way this thing is turning out. I keep finding myself sitting in the garage just staring at and daydreaming about loading it with gear and going out to play.

Dude that looks amazing sitting on the street. I can only imagine your neighbors. Can't wait to see you drive it around Bellevue and see what kind of looks you get.

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You won't see another one like it anytime soon, that's for sure! Definitely looks beastly though.

SO. Much. Awesome.

Everybody needs one of these!

Vicarious living, at its finest!

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nailed it. love it. keep making it better.

Time for an update!

Progress was stifled for a bit between traveling for work and working on fixing my wife's A4 (which decided it really didn't like having straight valves one day). Ended up getting a "new" engine w/ 13k miles on it for a few hundred dollars more than it would have cost for just a new head and the parts to swap it out. One evening after work to get the old one out, and another evening to get the new one in. With that done, the garage and my time are once again free to work on the lifted Coupe.

First off, I needed to deal with my axle length issue. I popped the passenger side front axle out of the outer CV while pulling out of my driveway, which made it quite clear I needed to either chop and lengthen the axle shafts or make some axle spacers. I like being able to bolt on replacement parts as much as possible, so I opted for spacers.

I'm going to start posting pics of the drawings for the custom parts I make. I've already had a few questions about dimensions I didn't keep/take pictures of the sketches of, so maybe this will be useful to somebody someday.

I ended up making mine 3/4" thick.


Started w/ 1" slices of 4.25" round 6061 aluminum bar stock



Machined



Drilled



Installed




While I was in there I fixed the axle that pulled out of the CV, and took the opportunity to pull the front strut assemblies back out for some modification: Trimming the bottoms for axle clearance, and installing shock boots + bump stops (the parts hadn't arrived by the time I wanted to put it all together last time so they have been sitting on the bench waiting).

Strut housing modification:


Hopefully this is enough.



Welded it back up



Then paint, boots + bump stops, and back in the car for hopefully the last time




Next up is fabricating the rear tie rods. With using the offset control arm + ball joints to center the rear wheels in the arches, I found I needed shorter rear tie rods to get the correct alignment. Unfortunately the rear control arms for these things are cast, which means chopping and welding them shorter is not a good option. Alternatively I could do the super fancy billet aluminum + spherical thing, but those are expensive AND I'm trying to keep rubber bushing in the suspension so it stays relatively comfortable to drive.

Instead, I came up with a cunning plan to modify a couple of front tie rod assemblies for use in the rear. At $21 each on Rock Auto it's by far the cheapest option too.

The measurement for the new ones worked out to removing 12" from the front tie rod to make it work in the rear.





When I went to test fit the pieces before welding them up, I discovered a snag in my plan: different tie rod end attachment sizes front and rear. I had assumed they were the same. Luckily they are the same taper angle, just a different diameter so they can be adapted with a machined steel bushing.



Welded, painted, and assembled:


Adapter bushings




Installed - they work great!

Awesome project.

Fantastic project and stellar machine work! What a little beast

I really like the use of the front tie rods for the rear, very ingenious!

We need some vids of this thing moving now!