[*] New Starter install
[*] Repair rear seat-heater plug
[*] Upholster bottom of seats
[*] Re-upholster wheel well to black [*] Undo the modded cluster
[*] install undertray [*] Install new air box
[*] Determine what the random wire is in the door [*]Metal diverter valve (PSH PSH PSHHHHH)
right hatch light is out
windshield wiper hoses+wiring [*]mfts sensor plug wiring [*]fuel system clean+flush [*]only one speaker functions (front passenger) [*]034 Fuel battery relay install [*]wheel well repair + install [*]sound deadening in rear (wheel well and floor)
stromung exhaust
complete bushing replacement on everything
ceramic+powder coating of turbo+downpipe
wiring cleanup + heat shielding
wheels (ENKEI RPF1 looks like it is the ticket)
Possibly an IR to RF conversion [*]Clean and repaint intercooler (not black enough)
patch hole in passenger side fender -- possibly find replacements
find and bolt on an injector cover [*]relocate/shield the LS2 coils
find a rubber boot for hatch wiring [*]fix all temperature/pressure gauges [*]replace clock with boost gauge (in cluster) - booooo this sucks [*]re-mount ECU (it's not bolted in)
Windshield replacement
register the car
drive car
So I am finally delving into the project car realm. I'm not too scared of things breaking, more concerned with buying a 1995 Audi in general. SoldOverSticker was a complete gentleman and went and looked at the car for me and I decided to pull the trigger. I know 2Bennet is the go-to for parts for these things, and the guy I am buying it from is heavily involved in the California racing scene so it's got all kinds of goodies coming with it.
Any of you ever own a URS6/4? Teach me about them. Enjoy the ride.
Here is the finished up Glacier Black stuff. It's coming out really nicely for the most part. It comes out far nicer on aluminum surfaces compared to iron, but that is to be expected as iron is far more rough.
Final pieces are curing now. Finally done with paint! Probably.
I ended up trying to use a puller tool from OTC that I purchased but it did not work at all. I am going to end up sending that tool back I believe. After this I simple made a slit in the middle of each freeze plug and pried them out. This was much more effort than I expected to put into these and I am slightly worried these are now damaged. I'll get an opinion from the shop regardless.
Check out how absolutely nasty these things are. I'm not even sure if that lip is supposed to be in there or if it is just buildup from the plugs.
legit hate yall btw. I went with all Febi for now. I didn't buy anything yet. Any suggestions on part maker? I try to stay away from Meyle if I can.
I cant find the bushing I need to rebuild my Koni shocks. Theyre 80-2630SPORT I think. Do people rebuild these or just buy new ones when they're shot? Seems a waste. Im looking for the bush for the mounting point
legit hate yall btw. I went with all Febi for now. I didn't buy anything yet. Any suggestions on part maker? I try to stay away from Meyle if I can.
I cant find the bushing I need to rebuild my Koni shocks. Theyre 80-2630SPORT I think. Do people rebuild these or just buy new ones when they're shot? Seems a waste. Im looking for the bush for the mounting point
In my experience, it's kind of a crap shoot no matter which brand you go with... with one exception. Buying genuine VW/Audi is pretty much a guarantee that it'll be good. But that's not always available. I'd imagine even less so for something as old as this.
As for the shock bushings, reach out to Koni and see what they have to offer.
ordered bushings. Should be here within a week or two. Machine shop on Thursday. How much you wanna bet we'll have to overbore the cylinders and put in JE or Wiseco pistons?
ordered bushings. Should be here within a week or two. Machine shop on Thursday. How much you wanna bet we'll have to overbore the cylinders and put in JE or Wiseco pistons?
I still have to completely buff the car, do the bushings, wire in the electric fan and mock it up into the stock fan housing, get the engine machined and back together, and then splice in replacement harnesses for the trunk and dash. While I am doing that I also kind of want to remove the carpet in the main cabin and lay down some sound deadening and cover up the crayon smell.
Also I still need a new windshield. People say the "chinese glass" ones for $300 aren't good but I am going to do it regardless.
I took the engine parts over to the machine shop, picked up the downpipe, did a drug test, and then went back to the machine shop to deliver some more parts I had forgotten. Also did a bunch of painting and sandblasting which took up the remainder of the time. Then I had a soccer match at 9 PM.
All in all a pretty unproductive day. I'll probably get to taking the suspension apart this weekend and tonight. I also want to practice welding a bit but don't have any gas yet.
I've been saving this for a while now because a lot of people get excited for wrinkle painted valve covers and such. Another reason I have been hiding it is because the process to get a proper wrinkle is apparently out of my hands. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason as to how the wrinkle sets up. I've tried with and without heat, light and heavy coats, waiting a few minutes and waiting days. Nothing seems to work.
First I did my intake manifold and it came out perfectly fine. Looks like a perfectly normal wrinkle black paintjob. I used VHT Wrinkle Plus from Autozone. The other pieces I did with the exact same can of paint. The only thing I can think of that has changed is the ambient temperature due to moving into the fall season.
As you can see it wrinkled quite well. I did 3 or so light-ish coats before anything started to wrinkle. I then applied direct heat with a heat gun for about 10 minutes all over and it started popping up. When trying this same method on the valve cover and coil cover it ended with tons of runs. I think i'll get a new can and try that again but be more patient this time.
This was attempt number one on these pieces. I was very displeased with the results. The wrinkle occurred only in splotches here and there and not nearly as much as was desired. I attempted to follow the instructions of adding some more paint in the areas where wrinkle did not occur but nothing changed.
I ended up sandblasting, cleaning, and trying again. This time I laid the larger part flat so I could walk around it and get everything easier. Still got runs. Still didn't wrinkle. Still crap.
I never thought I would get to the point where I am rebuilding turbos, but I guess it speaks to how far I have come in a year working on this thing. At first I was scared to even pull the valve cover off, now I am yanking apart things that spin at 50,000 rpm.
I received the rebuild kit from Turbo Lab America and got to work.
First I had to take the seals out and replace with new ones. I don't have any reason to believe these seals were bad, but when in Rome...
Rear seal done. By the way, the link is just from a cloth. I dunked everything in acetone after this. Now for the front seal! This one is a little more tricky as the seal seems to hold a part of the cage in place.
We will see if this works. The seal was just slightly larger than the old one but I believe that is because it is compressed during its entire life, so naturally the seal will be smaller in size. It still fit. We'll see if it seals!
Next up is the worst part. The ball bearings. These things are hard to work with, small, slippery, and very easy to lose. This is foreshadowing. I first tried spending 15 minutes to load the cage without anything to assist but this didn't work. Balls just kept falling out. After this I checked out Turbo Lab's youtube video on this and they recommend wrapping tape around the outside. I did this to much success.
And just like that, it snapped into place and spun freely. Very satisfying mechanics behind that! A fantastic tip to use the tape. And then catastrophe.
That is a missing ball bearing. The last one needed to complete this turbo rebuild. Darn.
Steering wheel was removed to make it a little bit easy to get out the door. In truth this is probably one of the easiest seats to remove from a car that I have ever seen. The only issue was getting the chair caught on a bit of the carpet.
You can see here that I have some leftovers from one of the previous owners. I am really concerned with this. The blue eggs were lip balm and the white cartridges are self explanatory.
If anyone has leads on 3-piece wheels in the turbo-twist style, cup 1, 3.6, etc then let me know. I don't want to spend more than $2000, though, so that's my issue currently. The ESM versions are about $900 but they're cast fake 3-piece.
I really want wheels with at least some lip and if it is going to look like it is 3-piece then it is going to be 3-piece. I am not THAT bad that I would rock faux 3-piece.
UPDATE: Got my dash out last night. Kind of. Turns out the airbag holder thing was holding it in for the longest time. I am now in the process of removing the steering column stocks to get the dash actually out. I also pulled the heater core and forgot one bolt and snapped a bit off. I keep forgetting that if something in this car is not coming out then it is because something is screwed in somewhere. Everything comes out easily if you just try a little harder (at unscrewing things).
The good news is that this gives me SO much room to rewire the dash loom where needed. I've not yet looked at the wiring diagram to see where things terminate and if there are sub-harnesses or not. I am really hoping that the speaker harnesses are just sub-harnesses that I can pull, plug, and play. If not I am fine with splicing but it is less fun.
This would also probably be a good time to retry using those weatherpack connectors. I've got some lying around with pins and such. Maybe I'll do the radiator electric fan with one!
As for the horns: I got some Hella horns a long time ago and they come with a relay. I'm still trying to figure out how these work.
Features don’t matter. Find a local tuner, use what he is used to. All the aftermarket ecus work differently, and you want a local resource that knows how to tune it.
After seeing what I have seen it simply isn't safe to drive the car or even have a battery in it until the wiring is replaced. I wouldn't be able to sell this car to anyone without signing a waiver or something if I hadn't done all of this. I am absolutely shocked that a fire hasn't been started yet. The only fire that has occurred in this car is from the back seat shorting out on the battery post which is an extremely common thing to have happen. I am going to put some rubber insulation on the bottom of the seat so that doesn't happen I think.
I decided while I am taking apart the 3 harnesses that are going to be swapped in, I will clean off the old adhesive to remove as much crayon smell as possible and then re-wrap it in whatever color tape is required for that section. Blue/yellow/black/off-yellow.
I haven't scrutinized the donor harness yet but it looks perfectly fine and without any splicing. It has the same issue the harness in the car has though which is that the crayon adhesive tape they used has degraded so much and turned the tape into an oily mess. Everything is covered in a thin film of glue and and oily nastiness which creates a large part of crayon smell.
I will clean off the old adhesive to remove as much crayon smell as possible and then re-wrap it in whatever color tape is required for that section. Blue/yellow/black/off-yellow.
When I saw your recent photos of the interior torn apart, I got anxiety as I've been there on a previous "project" car or two, and never recovered... But after seeing your wiring issues, I completely agree that a thorough going-through is needed to make this thing safe and reliable. You'd be chasing down endless issues later if you didn't dive into this now.
OP, I'm so glad this is your project and not mine. My probability of putting it all together and having it work would be negative. And yes, I understand statistics when I say that.
The vent in the right front fender had a dryer vent on it to the turbo.
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