Toph's 1990 3b 01e Coupe Quattro drives!

[Toph]

I guess the unknown condition of certain things was getting to my head.

Today I took the car down the road to put the car up on a lift and check it over. I mainly wanted to find the source of the vibration at 40+mph. As suspected it was the wheel, and it was badly bent. I don't have a spare, so I made a phone call to a wheel repair shop about 55 miles away. I told him my situation and he told me he'd stay and take care of it, this made my day. I made the decision to drive the 110 mile round trip, and had him fix 2 wheels. There is still a slight vibration in the back, but nothing like what it was - pretty impressive considering. He told me to call him after the drive back, I did and explained it to him and he said he'd work it again if necessary. They both balanced out though, saw it myself. I'll swap them to the front and see if it isn't some other issue that was just masked by the wheel. We'll see....

So she drove 55 miles and was weeping a bit of water from the lower radiator hose. Sure enough, the clamp was slightly loose. The ride back was issue-free. Other than the slight drip and the wheel work going past my time window to get an alignment, the car drove well and it was a good day.

I'm out bright and early to get an alignment tomorrow morning (I hope they're open), and I'm also hoping to rebleed my brakes before I go for a short drive with some people. The brakes are a bit soft and don't seem to be releasing properly.

[Toph]

Alignment techs broke my shift linkage cross rod trying to find reverse...it's still in the same spot that I F'N TOLD YOU WHEN I GOT THERE!!!

[Toph]

Ended up getting a tow from my helpful neighbor Dave. They gave me my money back, are paying for the part, and covered the cost of the tow with store credit. It works again though, turns out there is a piece that clips into the plastic cup end on the b5 s4 cross rod. This ring piece tensions the plastic against the metal ball. The lip that it clips to was slightly damaged, but it seems to be on there reasonably well now. I didn't bother to pull the linkage off, it really felt broken on the plastic side and would instantly pop off. I figured they destroyed it, but it is only partially damaged. Perhaps this is also built-in Audi tard-proofing. After all, it is from a 2000, and people were definitely becoming more and more stupid by that time. I kept very calm today, because I know mistakes happen. My biggest issue is that they didn't bother to talk to me before trying to fist-fuck my shifter into what would be sixth, if I had sixth. Once there was a problem, and I opened the hood, suddenly everyone seemed to give a fuck, why not before? I'm not sure why I didn't bother to remove and inspect the crossrod, maybe it was the combination of dumbfoundedness and anger repression that had me not thinking straight. Maybe it was the fact that I fear having someone else deal with my cars, and alignments are unavoidable. I even let my friend know how having someone random driving the car made me nervous, and how I wanted to drive it onto the rack myself. I didn't think that would fly, so I didn't ask, but I definitely regret that.

The car felt great on the ride in, and my initial numbers were actually pretty damn close even though I just did it by eye. Yay me hahah...

Here's an interesting note. After the alignment, the tech said that the upper strut mounts were not very good. HAHAHHAHAA brand new 034 mounts - looks like I got a bad set. I told them they were new and what the real issue must then be. Looks like I get to do that job twice for no good reason.

On a positive note, the same tech aslo thanked me for the Bambridge tie rod adjusters. I like them and definitely recomend them!

[glibobbo21]

Theyll always tell you these style mounts are bad, they always slop up and down when the cars weight is off them. Theyre used to mounts that arent designed in the 80's by audi.

[Toph]

I can feel it shift side to side in the steering wheel. I thought there was talk of an undersized upper strut mount over on the other forum, but now I can't seem to dig the thread back up.

[pilihp2]

http://www7.motorgeek.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=51860

[Toph]

Oh, here...

http://www.motorgeek.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=51860

[Toph]

Hahhaha beat me to it, thanks

[Toph]

Car status update:

- Making too much oil pressure, it drops to 3 bar at idle, but 5+ under load. Oil is pushing past my exhaust cam seal - 20w50 is excessive, changing it tomorrow to 10w40. It was perfectly fine before I changed the oil on Friday due to fuel contaminated oil from my MAF issue.
- There is a driveline vibration from about 35mph to 60mph. I had 2 wheels straightened by a wheelwright, they balanced out. Right now, my thought is that it is prop shaft related.
- Under heavy acceleration, which is really fun by the way, there is some metal-to-metal vibration/contact. I'm thinking this is either the intercooler touching the upper front crossmember, or the hood vibrating. Perhaps an under-hood GoPro would help diagnose that one.
- My 034 upper strut mounts are making the front end feel sketchy.
-Turbo sounds a bit like a supercharger...Hopefully just a slight boost leak

[audidub]

Got to see it and drive it over the weekend, despite a few bugs to work out its beautiful and runs very well. once the issues are taken care of it should be one of the best put together coupes in New England!

[Toph]

Thank you Ryan for the compliments and of course the hard work that you've contributed to this project! I really appreciate it.


Here's an update:
-Changed the oil to 10w40. This has caused a noticable reduction in the excessive pressure seen while running 20w50. Even the 10w40 may be a bit high for this engine. Once warm, anything above 2500rpms yields 5bar, and idle is right around 2bar. It really seems as though this is one healthy 220,000 mile 3b.
-Catch can is staying surprisingly dry
-The rattle under heavy acceleration and a bunch of the vibration was due to my subframe bolts backing out. Fixed that - many thanks to Jim for allowing me to use his lift!
-I have some vibration from 35mph to 45mph, but still have 2 slightly bent wheels (now running those in the back)
-Even with zero ducting to the radiator, temperatures stay consistantly reasonable.
-Low beam headlight relay keeps dying...haven't looked into it
-Bent my 1/4" aluminum power steering pump bracket while tightening the feed banjo. Looks like there will be a steel version in the near future. Belt started squealing non-stop last night. I'll fix it tomorrow one way or another I suppose...
-Bad 034 strut mounts and one junk rear strut mount. Four new units soon...




In order to run the stock 200 20v turbo inlet I had to cut down some of the headlight surround. This allowed me to run the N75 exactly as it is in the big bodied cars. Unfortunately, cutting the headlight surround meant that I couldn't run the hood latch on the passenger side. I still wanted some sort of catch, and my intercooler was in the way of the factory crossmember, and thus the stock b4 hood latch. The plan all along was to use the AeroCatch pins and the driver's side factory latch. This allowed me some security by having to pull the hood release from inside, and redundant latching for safety. The problem was that the hood release works by pulling the two spring levers in towards each other to release the latches on both sides of the hood. This meant that I must replicate this spring tension in order for the one side to work by itself. I bought a spring at the hardware store, had Ryan weld up a cylinder for it to sit in, and mounted that to my crossmember. Rather than trying to explain it in further detail, I will simply let the pictures do the talking. It works perfectly, first try! hahaha

N75 clearance - no way to run the factory passenger side latch




Driver's side factory latch in place




Emulated passenger side latch




"latch emulator" installed - yes, I cut and looped the wire back on itself after testing




Another view




And one more....





More fun to come