a few weeks ago I posted a thread of the audi A4 I bought
(thread) with a bad clutch. I took delivery of it 14 days before I needed to be 1600 miles away in Pennsylvania for school.
the car hadn't moved under its own power in 9 months before I bought it. I knew it was a runner, but it had a terrible driveline grind when the trans was in gear, and the clutch was out. it also wouldn't move. at first we thought it was the pilot bearing, but since the trans was the only major part on the car that was original (184k miles) I was going to replace it with a remanufactured unit anyways.
a friend helped me tow the car to my house, where I pulled the trans and clutch apart...that is an awfully short sentence that sums up about 3 days of work, we didn't have a lift, so it was done on jack stands in my garage, with no air or power tools. everything was done with hand tools.
I had done a clutch in my passat, which was one platform older than the audi, but had the same engine and a very similar trans. a few things were different, but I knew what to expect and what needed to be done.
once we had the trans out, we went to buy the remanufactured unit from an enthusiast who advertised the trans on CL. my new transmission was out of a B5, and had longer ratios than the original...the long ratios combined with the VVT turbo motor is absolutely fantastic, it may be slower, but its much smoother and feels like it pulls harder longer. his trans had 12k miles on it, he replaced it because he heard a clunking noise and blamed the trans, it turned out to be something else. we had to move over a few parts like the tailshaft housing/center diff housing, and center diff.
just like in the passat, putting it back together went MUCH faster than taking it apart.
once we had the trans back in, we tried it out on jack stands, and found the center diff was also shot. we bought an extra from the dude who sold us the transmission, and then we were in business, it would drive. here is what makes a Quattro so much better than any other AWD set up.
this was 3 or 4 days before I had to leave, and it was just now driving under its own power for the first time in 9 months...the car had several sitting related problems, but I had no time to worry about those, I needed the car to pass incpection, and sell my passat before I could leave. I had also been working 12 hour days, so the first thing I did to free up time was quit.
it feels SO good to quit a shitty job.
the Check engine light was on, and in Texas that pretty much meant an automatic fail. using a scanner, we found it was the IAT (intake air temperature) sensor that was causing the code. we subbed it out for the working one in the other car, and it still wouldn't work...there were a few other codes, so we decided to hammer those out and come back.
the second non-intermittent code was the thermostat coil. Audi has a coil in the thermostat, so the computer can open the thermostat if it so decides that is necessary. this was about 9 inches from the IAT, and after almost ordering another thermostat, we noticed the IAT and the thermostat had the same connector...so we swapped lines from the harness to the components, and both codes went away.
whoever replaced the engine fucked up and put the wrong wires to the wrong components.
the IAT is a resistance-type sensor, and the electrical current running through it over the years had cooked it, so my sensor was shot. also, this code caused the car to go into limp mode, the entire time this engine had been in the car it had only been running 5 PSI of boost, not the (still wimpy) 9 PSI it was supposed to.
there were a few other things that had to be done, for one, the headlights didn't work. this car had factory HID's, and we found both bulbs were missing. I think the previous owner had to buy new ones ($70 each) and didn't want to sell them with the car. we got new bulbs, and found one of the ballasts was fried...so we wired in one halogen just to pass inspection...the rear tires were also totally bald. I put the rubber off the passat on the Audi in hopes of using that to pass inspection.
I was kinda broke, and had been trying to sell my passat...I had to get rid of it fast, so I didn't get what I could have for it, but I did get enough to finish the Audi, and have a good backup for starting college.
with the money I got from the passat, I was able to finally address the rubber situation permanently. I bought 2 Continentals and got a Kumho for free to put on the spare. anyone that has driven a car with cheap rubber, then driven the same car with nothing changed other than expensive rubber will tell you, tires are not a place to cheap out. good tires can make a stock car outrun a car with a complete suspension and coilover job. you put Kumhos on a car that has no rubber that you are trying to sell, if you are actually going to drive it, put good rubber on it.
the day before I left, the car passed inspection. it was close, because there were a few things the shop could have picked to fail me on, like the crack in the windshield, or the SAI (secondary air injection, or smog pump) system was throwing a code for a leak. also the sketch headlights and sporadic wheel speed sensor code...but it passed.
I spent the rest of the day ignoring the "max loaded capacity" sticker and loading everything I owned into the car...mainly tools...
I never had it weighed, but I know it was at least double max loaded capacity. it rode like shit.
we left at 5:00 AM the next morning, before we were out of Texas, the front passenger wheel bearing started to vibrate. the rear passenger window regulator was broken, so the window would slowly fall down as we drove...to prevent buffeting, we had to roll with the windows down. it got miserable at times.
by the time we were in Arkansas, we noticed the exhaust was steadily getting louder and louder, and rattled between 2500 and 3200 RPM. when we got to kentucky it the wheel bearing was so bad I had to slow down when turning right, it felt like I was on the rumble strip whenever I turned right going faster than 70. also, the shift pattern was slowly changing shape...reverse was getting further and further from 4th, which had kinda blended with 5th...
we spent the night in kentucky, the next day we started through west VA. going through the hills, I just set the cruise control to 80 and ignored the wheel bearing. the suspension on the car was surprisingly tight, except powering out of left turns...at a rest stop i checked the rear driver suspension, and found someone had put a spacer in the spring.
here I am driving up to an insane asylum in west VA. kind of a badass shot of how fucking huge that place was.
the car limped into PA, but we made it. when I replaced the wheel bearing, it was exceptionally bad, worse than I had ever seen before...it could have failed completely at any moment. the car wouldn't go into reverse anymore, after I adjusted the shift linkage, that problem was solved.
the car is still a work in progress, but it made it here. we found the motor is a reman that was replaced at 154k, the trans I put in had 12k before the drive, the suspension is tight other than the spring, the electrical system is fine, and the interior is still not bad. this car is on track to be one of those "456k miles, only thing original is the VIN plates and the odometer" cars on craigslist.
its an absolute beast on gravel or dirt roads, the only way to explain AWD to someone who hasn't driven one hard, is it feels like you are breaking the laws of physics...the car should be sliding, it doesn't seem possible that a 4500 lb car can go this fast this hard on gravel without sliding, but no matter how hard you push it, there is still grip for some reason...
the car is still pretty much stock, but I'm going to fix everything before I start fucking with it. I already put in Sunpro gauges (boost and oil PSI)
a hybrid diverter/blow off valve
future mods-
-ABS interrupter
-new injectors/chip
-performance exhaust/O2 sensor relocation
-intercooler
-
diff mod-Frankenturbo (eventually
)
I will update this thread whenever I do major work on the car
