So, figured I would do yet another rebuild thread. This one is for my 1996 Audi A4 with a 1.8 ADR engine. So for people wondering why I’m chucking a shed load of money at this somewhat worthless car, here is the answer. It’s basically the time I’ve had it and the memory’s it holds. I got the car back in 1999 from my local Audi dealer, back then the 1.8 non-turbo engine was all I could afford, and in the 21 years we have owned the car I have put over 216,000 miles on the clock and been all around the country, and to Europe in it. My wife and I have had a lot of good times and fell it was worth restoring the car and seeing it back on the road.
I started the restoration of the car many years ago, unfortunately it all stopped due to illness, work, wife, kids, house, etc etc. So back in march I made the decision to start it up again as it was either chuck the car in the bin or get it finished, and the hole COVID thing allowed me some time to work on the project, seeing as you could not go out during the day, evenings or the weekend… I was still working during the lockdown but had a hell of a lot of time on my hands so it's been an ideal time for a project!
So this is the car after it was rolled out of the garage after been suck in there for many years. I’d already done some work by removing the rust from three of the wheel arches and having some work done on the engine. So the starting point this time was the rear-end. The only real option for most or the rear drive train was to chuck in the bin and buy new, the rear axle was saved and was shot blasted and poweder coated, also saved the springs as there was very little surface rust on them. For the rest, fuel tank straps, heat shields, exhaust brackets, exhaust, brakes, brake pipes, hand brake cables, calliper mounts, callipers, shocks, disk guards, fuel filter bracket, axle brackets, nuts, bolts and rubber hose’s all went in the bin.
This was the state of the rear-end, what your seeing is all just surface corrosion on the body work but it took a few weeks to strip it back as I’m leaving the good underseal and finding the rust under the bad section of underseal.
The callipers do look in good condition, but they has seized solid rust had crept into the piston and cylinder so in the bin they went
Few images of the stripping process, I hope to never have to do this to a car again, but I'm sure I will as at some point I'm planning to buy an S2 coupe, and I'm sure it will need the same treatment.
Fuel hose on the tank were rock hard, so were all binned.
Removing the stub axles was a bit of a pain, hard to use a lot of heat & penetrating fluid to get the remainder of the bolts out.
Stub axles had the rust removed from the base using this stuff, it does a far better job than any of the rust removal solutions you can buy and it's a hell of a lot cheaper.
Both stub axles and ABS rings were cleaned up with it. took about 2-3 hours to remove most of the rust and 4-5 hours to clear it all.
No after pictures, but there are a few good videos on youtube showing how good oxalic acid is as a rust remover.
Will post the after pictures later this evening.
I started the restoration of the car many years ago, unfortunately it all stopped due to illness, work, wife, kids, house, etc etc. So back in march I made the decision to start it up again as it was either chuck the car in the bin or get it finished, and the hole COVID thing allowed me some time to work on the project, seeing as you could not go out during the day, evenings or the weekend… I was still working during the lockdown but had a hell of a lot of time on my hands so it's been an ideal time for a project!
So this is the car after it was rolled out of the garage after been suck in there for many years. I’d already done some work by removing the rust from three of the wheel arches and having some work done on the engine. So the starting point this time was the rear-end. The only real option for most or the rear drive train was to chuck in the bin and buy new, the rear axle was saved and was shot blasted and poweder coated, also saved the springs as there was very little surface rust on them. For the rest, fuel tank straps, heat shields, exhaust brackets, exhaust, brakes, brake pipes, hand brake cables, calliper mounts, callipers, shocks, disk guards, fuel filter bracket, axle brackets, nuts, bolts and rubber hose’s all went in the bin.
This was the state of the rear-end, what your seeing is all just surface corrosion on the body work but it took a few weeks to strip it back as I’m leaving the good underseal and finding the rust under the bad section of underseal.
The callipers do look in good condition, but they has seized solid rust had crept into the piston and cylinder so in the bin they went
Few images of the stripping process, I hope to never have to do this to a car again, but I'm sure I will as at some point I'm planning to buy an S2 coupe, and I'm sure it will need the same treatment.
Fuel hose on the tank were rock hard, so were all binned.
Removing the stub axles was a bit of a pain, hard to use a lot of heat & penetrating fluid to get the remainder of the bolts out.
Stub axles had the rust removed from the base using this stuff, it does a far better job than any of the rust removal solutions you can buy and it's a hell of a lot cheaper.
Both stub axles and ABS rings were cleaned up with it. took about 2-3 hours to remove most of the rust and 4-5 hours to clear it all.
No after pictures, but there are a few good videos on youtube showing how good oxalic acid is as a rust remover.
Will post the after pictures later this evening.