Weekend Car-O-Thon

[aragorn]

Ive had a few jobs piling up to do on the car without enough time to do them for a few months now...
I noticed two weeks ago that my front suspension arms were shot, so i decided that i'd take the car to my mates place and spend the weekend working on it.

I've got quite a list to get thru, i'll update this thread with progress updates as i go.

I'll start by listing the jobs on the todo list:

Replace Front suspension arms, and two front wheel bearings
Fit Polyurethane Snub Mount
Fit Facelift Joey-Modded Headlights
Create a mould of the boot side panel and fabricate a fibreglass sub box.
Run sub wiring from battery/head unit
Add an ignition switched live to the head unit
Paint alloy wheels

I dont expect to get it all done, the painting of the alloys is quite low on the priority list and i dont know if i'll have enough time to finish the sub box completely but i'll do my best.

 

[olds_kool]

good luck, got a similiar length list to do on my avant but cant get motivated, maybe tommorrow
whats a joey modded headlight?

 

[aragorn]

a joey mod is where you dismantle the headlights and paint the chrome internals (i chose anthracite which is a dark metallic grey, i'm painting the wheels the same color). Obviously the main beam reflector and the indicator reflector needs masked off, but the rest of the chrome is now painted.

 

[Broken Byzan]

I have a simialr list building, but lack the motivation, what we need is a massive garage so we can have a GTG at the same time,lol

 

[Markey]

looks like your going to be very busy then some good work going on there will make the Audi feel a little more loved.

 

[stapo69]

I have a similar weekend planned, new full exhaust, lcr splitter, and boost guage to fit. Hopfully all will go well, on everyones cars! Does it ever? Good luck to all!

 

[aragorn]

Well got here and made a start.

We managed to mask off the side of the boot and lay the fibreglass matting. Hopefully that will be dry for tomorrow and we can get stuck into the mechanicals

ive put some pictures up of the headlamps and the fibreglassing if your interested.

www.lr90.org/Audi/230508/

 

[Broken Byzan]

I made mine fit behind that panel ( well on a saloon) sounds good, i put wadding in there too as its slightly smaller than it should be, adds a nice bass note to the music without being chavvy

Good work, get back out and carry on, it will be dry in an hour

 

[aragorn]

well what a day!

Got up and set to around 9am, removed the sub box and created a top and front from MDF, screwed them together and fibreglassed the joints from the inside. Left to dry and meant to fibreglass the outsides later but we never got back to it. Will do that tomorrow AM

Then set about the suspension at around 11am. The job took us until 10pm including lunch and dinner breaks. We hit a few snags including one of the pinch bolts being so siezed that blowtorch and a huge mallet wouldnt remove it. We ended up drilling it out. One of the bolts that holds the top mount carrier to the bodywork snapped off so that had to be drilled out and retapped too. Didnt realise the subframe had to be dropped to get the rear arms out and we'd sat the car on blocks on the subframe reinforcement plates so that added extra time having to move them. Amusingly the things that normally sieze solid on other cars (like the ball joints and track rod ends) all came off perfectly. Anyways we got the wheels back on at around 10, while being eaten alive by midges. Not test drove it yet, will do that tomorrow after we change the snub mount.

So all in all a hectic day. Had hoped to have the suspension sub box and snub mount all done today but thats just how these things go!

Tomorrow we'll finish the sub box and attack the snub mount along with the rocker cover gasket. Ive noticed some oil on the osf boost hose so i need to have a look to see where the oils coming from, possibly the turbo oil return or perhaps the rocker covers just running down the head/block

 

[Broken Byzan]

Drop the subframe to get the rear arms out?? Really, didnt need to on mine,or any other one i worked on. odd.
EDIT The bolts are tight to the floor but will come out then i put them in from the other side, seeing as they are a ****** consumable for us B5 owners

I am curious how much difference the snub mount makes as i think i need one as my exhaust moves a lot on acceleration/decelleration. Did you buy it from the UK?

 

[stapo69]

Damn british bank holiday weather slowed me up, typical! Got my exhaust on, luckily had some ramps to use for that, as for me LCR splitter, that'll have to wait now, as it won't stop raining!!!!

 

[aragorn]

Well todays progress update:

Started first thing putting a final layer of fibreglass on the sub box, but that went badly wrong as we'd used too much hardner and the heat made it go off far too quickly meaning we had to grind it all back off.

The snub mount was next and was relatively painless, It came from awesome GTI and was specified for a B6 bit seems to fit anyway. It has massively reduced the driveline shunting that was present before, although its still there a little i can only assume this is either due to the small amount of space that exists between the mount and the bracket, or that some of the other engine mounts are a bit knackered too!

did the headlights while the bumper was off and that went ok to begin with but the sealant i used failed on one of the lights and the lens came off when i was fitting it I put it back together with polyurethane sealant and some duck tape and hopefully will properly go off this time.

i did the rocker cover gasket and found that the middle stud on the exhaust side was a bit knackered and didnt tighten up very well. I will have to wait and see if it seals and if it doesnt i'll need to get a new stud.

Took it out for a test drive and the arms have made a huge difference to the handling. Its much tighter and feels much more solid on the road. One thing i would say from doing this job is that i seriously would not be fitting polybushes to the front of it. The movement the bushes go thru with steering input is very significant and by changing the properties of the bushes so greatly would seriously affect how each bush responds and would have a very significant effect on the steering and suspension geometry

Sub box isnt quite finished. will need some sanding and then carpeted etc.

I'll get some photos of the fitted headlights once i get a chance to give the car a wash!

Anyways, Bed time!

 

[aragorn]

Gave it a wash and polish today, was badly needing both!

I took a few pictures of the headlights, but its really difficult to get a good shot of them on such a sunny day as theres so much reflection off the casing.

Should look even better with an RS4 grill and painted surround and badge

Will have to try and get the sub box finished and carpeted this week as we're off to northern ireland next week and i'd like it all fitted for then.

Only negative is i've lost my front foglights. I might try to fabricate some mounts for facelift fogs and fit them in the bumper but they arent used that often.