Audi TT 225 - banger project

[B5NUT]

Audi TT 225 - banger project​

After reading many threads on various forums about Audi coupe's lack of being water tight. I decided that I was not going to run the S2 over the winter months. I also don't want to chuck a load of miles on the car doing mundane driving and want to avoid the salty winter roads. So over the past months I'm been looking around for options. It had to be Audi and cheap. I've had a load of B5 over the years, and did not want another estate car. Was thinking of an 80 but was getting board with NLA part finding.

Also wanted something similar power wise to the S2, and avoid any money pit V6 or V8 engines.

So for a while now I was thinking about the TT, I kind of like the MK1 and they are cheap enough at the moment. There is a couple of MK1 TT where I live and I walk past one very day when I'm walking the dog, and it's been catching my eye. I've also noticed they are starting to thin out on the UK roads, with a lot of them being broken from what I see on FB market place. Let face it who is going to spend £300-500 on a cambelt change and service on a car worth £1K, unless you can do it yourself. Labour rates are the death of cars.

So my brief on the car I need. It's had to be cheap around £1K, and to be the BAM engine and the body work had to be in good condition. Don't mind if need wings just as longs as the main body was ok. There were plenty of £2.5K-£3K cars around that look very good on the surface and interior but the running gear still needs a lot of work as they are all around 20 years old with 100K miles. So would rather get a £1K car and spend £2K to bring it up to scratch. Also with lots of cars being broken parts are cheap, and everything I've ordered from TPS at the moment has either been in stock or with me next day. Which is a nice change.

When I was searching for a cheap motor I went to see two cars, both were in poor condition. One looked like it had been painted with a rattle can, and the other car the owner had let slip it had been a track car after I asked why the engine had been replaced, and the airbag system had been disabled! On both cars I got out of there quickly and never even bothered with a test drive. Few days ago one lunch time I was searching FB marketplace and one had been posted only an hour before and it was local. So messaged the seller and within 3 hours the car was mine after a bit of haggling.

Kind of like the red leather, it breaks up the sea of black. The interior is also in very good condition. But it needs a dam good clean.

Issues with the car as follows.

Engine management light on, think a sensor has failed from the VCDS scan.
Needs a new windscreen
Needs a cambelt.
Engine needs servicing, plugs, oil, filters etc.
Sump removed to check the pickup, the 1.8 is know for sludging up.
Haldex needs servicing.
Brake, gearbox and PAS fluid needs changing.
Needs a replacement rear exhaust (Owner gave me a good one for free).
A/C needed fixing loads of gas but does not work.
Drivers side wing has a dent & scrape will either repair or replace.
All the running gear need blasting and powder coating.
New bushes & joints required.
Needs shocks & springs.
Car needs a good clean inside and out..

With the car back home the work has begun. Engine bay has never been cleaned.

Looks like the entire scuttle trim needs replacing, just because this VIN window has failed

Started the strip down

Air filter has been done recently

Lovely

Rocker cover was leaking, in a few places!

Belt is not in good health

Looks like someone got a job lot on self tapping screws. They were the only thing holding the undertray on

Spark plugs are also well passed their best, gap on the plugs was massive compare to the new ones.

This was about as far as I got on the first day

More to follow

 

[NHN]

Omg you're spoiling us mate, just about digesting the S2, but now this.

Aircon probably the G65 unless it's a condenser leak, but usually it's the sender.

Red leather seats noooooooo lol

 

[B5NUT]

Think I found the A/C issue will explain the next couple of posts.

Second day was mainly further stripping down and draining fluids.

Sometimes I wonder if arch liners are a good idea or not, especially if they are never removed and the areas behind them cleaned out from time to time.

Off with the intercool pipe work, little dribble started to come out so stuck a jug under and got about 150ML out, which after 20 years is not that bad

Next up coolant, which again was not too bad.

Good only knows why Audi used this cap for the pas fluid. Will look around for a more sensible cap that you can remove with your hand.

Cam cover removed

This is what comes form infrequent / long life oil changes. I know the 1.8T is know for sludging up so will be giving the car regular changes to help clean out the crap I cannot get to.

Sump was not much better, I had to remove it as bits of the disintegrated dipstick tube had dropped in there and I wanted to clean the pickup.

To remove the sump I had to get creative. It was well and truly stuck on after 20 years.

So this lot along with the engine bay all got cleaned up.

Sump was cleaned up

Pickup tube was soaked in brake cleaner. there was some crud in the filter but it was not too bad after seeing the state of the cam cover.

Along with the cam cover. This was scrubbed with brake fluid and a wire wool. Once it was as clean as I could get it it went into the dishwasher

and the final results were impressive. Soo much so I'm going to buy one for the workshop

This is what was left of the dipstick tube, the plastic was so brittle when I tried to remove it it fell apart and bits ended up in the sump.

Final job on the second day was to drain the PAS fluid, forgot to take a picture but after 20 years it was very grim.

 

[B5NUT]

So another job that has taken far to long was fixing the A/C wiring issue. I found this when I removed the Alternator The two wires that switch on the A/C compressor.

When I moved the wire it snapped in two. Looks like it's been rubbing against the A/C pipes and finally cut through. Will need to check the fuses as well (when I find them)

Was going to solder a new section of wire in however it was far to tarnished no matter what I did it solder would not take to the wire. So what should have been a 20minute job took a heck of a lot longer.

So started off with a new terminal and the correct gauge wire which was then covered in heat shrink, as it appears that that old wires were.

I got lucky on where the wire terminated. It went to another plug in the loom it was only about 60cm run. Pin 3 was the replacement wire. I've left the old wire in place as it was going to be far too much trouble trying to remove it.

The sump was refitted as it needed to be done before I start the timing belt belt job and there was no way I was going to use the upper engine support as it would get right on my nips as you need a lot of access above while doing the belt change,

Splashed out on some VAG sealant.

once fitted the bolts were torqued up and then I left it overnight for the sealant to go off before I supported the engine from the jack on the underside.

Next up will be the timing belt which so far has proven to be a right pain in the backside.

 

[NHN]

Your work methodology shows me we could be good friends lol, honestly you don't find many that have that level of atd, no *** kissing either, the do it once or not... is how I look at things.

 

[desertstorm]

That car hasn't had a lot of TLC in many years by the look of it. Surprised at the state of the coolant, Looks like it has been changed recently. Maybe car has had a coolant leak some time recently.

 

[B5NUT]

No, it's seen nothing for many years. There was silicone sealant around the water pump so rather than replace it or replace the O-ring they just bodged the job, which I don't see the point as getting the timing belt off is a massive paint in the backside on these cars. You can get an OK example for £1,500 so people will buy them till they break, then weigh them in for scrap and move on to the next banger.

 

[B5NUT]

Next job on the list is the timing belt. Was not looking forward to this as I remember doing one on an A3, but this was an even bigger pain in the **** than the A3.

So after spending the first hour or two stripping down the right hand side of the engine bay and draining the coolant and the pas fluid out of the reservoir only. I was then able to removed the timing cover to get my first look at the belt. The timing cover has also been smashed off at some point at some point of the cars life as it's difficult to remove. So another part on the list which I had to buy.

The only fault on the engine was this fault code.
1 Fault Found:
17748 - Camshaft Position Sensor (G40) / Engine Speed Sensor (G28)
P1340 - 35-00 - Incor. Correlation
Readiness: 0100 0000

Now I figured what mechanic would allow a car out with the engine light on and the belt not timed correctly, so it must be one of the sensors. Wrong! It appears whoever fitted or refitted the belt could not be bothered to time the engine correctly and was happy for the customer to drive around with the EML on

It also could have been done by another owner but again who would drive the car around know the timing was out!

So with the top pully aligned this is where the crank was and no timing was mark was visible on the fly wheel. (And yes that belt has seen better days).

Another "that'll do" job.

The biggest pain about this job is to remove the bracket that bolts to the engine. Top marks goes to the people at the ministry of crap design, you really out did yourself on this one! With the water pump removed the bracket could be finally removed out of the way, and yet another bodge was found.

Have to say I don't understand the mentality of this, why would you not replace the pump or the O-ring, they are stocked by the likes of TPS and other motor factors. even the O-ring is available to buy and they only cost a couple of quid!

I was going to go down the line of buying the timing belt parts from TPS, but gates do a complete kit which includes the tensioner, pully, belt and water pump for £130. The tensioner alone for Audi was over that.

Also looks like the tensioner is OEM, but the Audi logo & part are number machined off.

The gates pump comes with the metal impeller, but the pump will be change with every cambelt, as the bearings don't last forever.

Belt on and that was another pain

So the only way I found of getting the belt on was to get the belt on a everything except the crank. As at this point there is not enough play on the belt to just slide it on

So with the top pully aligned and the belt nice and tight between the top pully, water pump and crank you then slide the first few teeth of the belt on the crank (that will be the most you can get on) then with a 19mm spanner on the crank bolt turn the engine clockwise and the belt will go on the lower crank. I had to use this method three times as the first two times I was a tooth out. On the third attempt I moved the upper pully 1 tooth forward of the timing mark, and finally got it all aligned. With that tensioner pin was pulled and the engine was rotated several times by hand to make sure it was fully aligned and the valves & pistons weren't have a little bit of foreplay with each other!

At this point everything was refitted except aux belt as I needed to flush the power steering fluid.

After 20 years it looked like this. Should be a nice green colour.

So with the return on the PAS reservoir bunged up with a bit of old hose and a bolt, and the return line leading into another pipe that goes off to a contain to get the old oil.

The PAS bottle is filled up and and the pump is operated by a drill It's best if you have two people at this point as the pump drains the PAS reservoir in seconds, so having someone top it up while you operate the drill is the best method.

As I've attached a clear hose you can see the oil change from a nasty brown to the green colour.

At this point you can stop and drain the reservoir a bit so the oil in there does not come out of the return connector. Refit the hose and the clamp. Refill the reservoir and then using the drill again run the pump with the drill until the level is correct.

Next to sort some rusty brackets. before the everything is put back together.

 

[B5NUT]

Over the weekend the engine bay was put back together so it could be started!

New dipstick tube fitted, got two of these as wanted a spare just in case. However the puppy found them and chewed one them them to bits.

Got a replacement cam cover sorted

Everything refitted on the right side

First of the two intercoolers were fitted.

Then it all came to a stop and the crusty rust was found. Now I'm not going to fix every bit of rust on the car but this is just not acceptable.

The area around that plate was also covered so that got ground back as well.

All repainted in a similar grey primer epoxy to what I found on the car

Rest of the arch will be done when the suspension is off the car.

Horn brackets were also taken care of. As they weren't giving me the horn!

Also repainted was the upper trim bracket as it was also quite rusty

Finally oil and coolant was put in the engine ready for the first start

This point it's where my backside starts to twitch! I've not done many cambelt changes over the years. Think this is belt number 6. So that first turn of the key there is always a bit of bum clenching, and I look at the engine bay area for about 10 minutes trying to remember if every nut and bolt was tightened and did I do enough manual turns of the engine. Anyway it fired up first turn and with no issues. Had the car out for a quick test drive and no engine management light or fault codes

The broken wire repair also fixed the A/C system which was nice

Also getting the battery back on allowed my to open the boot so I get to the VIN sticker, as I wanted the paint code of the car

Finally for this less than exciting post, is and "Edd China" top tip! When welding make sure there are no sponges around. My god do they burn well

The flames coming off them was unreal

 

[B5NUT]

Over the weekend the front suspension & subframe was removed. Thankfully it all came apart quiet easily, and other than someone changing a CV boot at one point it's very unmolested by the hand of the bodge. I cannot stand a dirty wheel arch!

Usual rust issues on all the suspension components, however there is very little on the outer and inner arches.

Bushes are also well passed there best

The hand of bodge. One of the parts changed has been bodged!. God only know what brand CV boot was used but it was the very cheapest.

Joints on the mechanism that controls the self levelling headlights were all sized.

The mounting points for the sensor had also corroded way to nothing. Once I tried to remove the bolt it just fell out and only powder was left.

No matter how much genital prying and pen fluid I tried the ABS sensors would not come out! So they got a gentle tap with a BFH which removed them. New ones are cheap enough so no big issue with them being damaged.

Looks like someone splashed on on the brake pads!

Front bearing were also not in the best of condition, leaking grease and were a little to free moving for my liking.

Don't usually see an inner CV boot failure

Forgot about this! It's also had a single spring replaced. This one is made by KYB the other one side is still the original Audi one and it's covered in rust

These were the only parts that refused to come off so were given some gentle persuasion with the angle grinder, to chop the nuts off.

While I'm under the car I think I'll chop these off and fit some new one. Think it's only good will holding these together.

Found a leak on one of the PAS hoses when the subframe was removed so that will need to be replaced.

When I looked around at TT's there were many nice ones at about £3K, however when contacting the owners asking details on the cars not one of them had any work done on the underside other than usual maintenance of brakes and the like. So all of them will be needing this sort of work at some point or they will end up on the scrap heap. For UK cars unless someone has looked after them very well then most 20 year old TT with 100K + miles will all need some serious attention to the running gear. It's why I wanted a car with minimal body work issues and cheap so I can put some money into the car and bring it up to a £3K ish motor.

 

[B5NUT]

So It's been a week since I removed the front suspension & subframe. All of the parts have been stripped and are ready for paint. The subframe and the lower arms went off for blasting. I'm only going to powder coat the lower arms, as the subframe just went for blasting to remove the rust. I picked in up on the Wednesday, hoping I could paint it that day but other commitments and life got in the way. I stored the frame in the house but even in my upstairs workroom the rust started to creep back.

So yesterday everything else was stripped using various power tools and air tools.

Before and after as it were, they were in a bit of a state.

Once I stripped them down as much as I could with the wire wheel, and then put them in the blast cabinet. My setup is really only for thin rust, as it does struggle with the thicker stuff. None of my wire wheels were small enough to get into this area so used the needle scaler to clean this lot off.

So once all the parts were as free from rust as possible and all had been shotblasted the rust convertor was applied. A lot of the parts were heavily pitted, and unless I started grinding the metal away to remove the pitting then rust convertor was the next best option. I used the FE converter from rustbuster.

The subframe was also applied with convertor. The blue colour is the during colour colour on the rust converter, It now looks black.

The reason for not having the subframe powder coated was the bushes They are NLA

They are also in very good condition, due to the fact they get little to no flexing whatsoever, due to the front subframe mount being solid metal. I could have gone down the poly bush route but figured I would save myself some money and hassle by leaving them.

Stripped down the headlight levelling arm. The joints were rusted solid. Going to see if I can find some plastic inserts as one them them is not in a good condition.

CV joints were not in the best of condition grease wise. Couple of them looked like the one in the photo below, one had very little grease in it and the other was more like thick oil than grease! They were also stripped and cleaned of all grease and rust removed ready for paint tomorrow.

While I was under the car yesterday, I removed the cats as I wanted to check them and fix/replace all the rusty nuts & bolts as most of them looked like this

All of the bolts and nuts had to be cut off in the end and none of them were in good enough condition that I could get a socket on them. Once the cats were removed then I started cutting hammering out the pressed in bolts. I'll replace these with stainless bolts with copper nuts

Also dismantled shocks, as I wanted the dust covers and stop buffer. These were the only salvageable parts on the shocks. Had to make up another tool using an old 19mm/21mm double ended socket. Made one of these of my A4 but it uses a different size nut then the TT. It's very basic just drilled out the center hole of the socket so it did not foul the top end of the threaded shock shaft, ground away some of the metal around the bottom of the socket so it did not foul on the rubber mount and then put a flat on the socket so I could get a spanner on it.

Also had to deal with the inner race of the old bearing that was still firmly attached to the hub. The cupped ABS ring gets in the way of using my normal go tool of a bearing puller/splitter, so improvised with a another gear puller I had. Also used a clamp to keep the legs of the puller tight as there is so little lip to deal with it just pops off without them. Also there was no chance of getting a grinder in there cutting through the race.

Also had to grind the edge off an old hub bolt to push against.

So tomorrow will be paint for most parts and will be collecting the bottom and the refurbished wheels on Tuesday. I'm hoping the front-end is done this week so I can get the rear of the car stripped next weekend.

 

[B5NUT]

Slowly the front end of the car is starting to come back together.

Over the last coupe of days the arches were painted. The arches were washed, rust ground away and converter applied to the pitting. Once done two coats of Lechler epoxy were applied.

Then onto the Base colour

Followed by 2-3 coats of 2K clear and once dried all the masking was removed. Leaving a nice clean and shiny arch!

Also got all the running gear parts painted. Think I used about 300ml of epoxy on this subframe alone both inside and out.

Then all this lot was painted..

I know I could have all that lot powder coated but, I'm trying to keep the cost down on this project, so like Tesco. Every little helps!

Very little done yesterday evening. Got the bearing pressed into the housing.

This time remembering to support the centre of the bearing rather then supporting the housing while pressing the hub in and ******ing a bearing like I did on the S2 build

Hub was then pressed in. The old one were well passed there best, there was wobble on at lease one of the old bearing and they were a little too free running, so the grease has long since escaped .

I was going to rebuild the drive shaft this evening. However it looks like a made a bit of a mistake! On the inner joint I removed and binned both the inner and outer metal covers for the inner joint. As I wanted to make 100% sure that all the old grease and dirt had gone. However when I opened the GKN CV kit tonight only the inner metal cover is included in the kit not the outer one. The item highlighted in red is the one I've binned.

Now I think I've found a possible replacement. It's an inner CV boot kit from a B5 RS4 made by FEBI, looks like the right thing and the size looks to be correct. I just hope it fits.

If that is not correct then my only other options would be to buy a set of used shafts or buy two new inner CV joints

 

[B5NUT]

Today was a step backwards in the rebuild. I was hoping to get the subframe in the car today but the PAS pipe were just not acceptable. The one that is leaking form the joint is over £400 from Audi, and the other one that is getting a little rotten is £250.

So today I had a drive up to Newcastle to pick parts from a car that was been broken. Got a replacement pipe for my leaking pipe. A nice £60 rather than the £400 from Audi. The pipe is now ready for paint which I'll do in the morning.

however the other pipe I was also hoping to get was sold. So I've decided to strip my current pipe back and paint it. Thankfully it's still solid and does not have any holes, so it will be covered in many coats of epoxy to keep the rust at bay and the water/salt out.

The support that holds the front pipes was also starting to rot and it's part of the charge air cooler system so don't want to to be full of holes. That was stripped back this evening and rust convert applied and will be painted tomorrow.

Changed return turbo oil seal. what a sod to get to. You can just see one of the bolts. The other is completely hidden and trying to get the bolt through the plate and the gasket and find the bolt hole took a while.

Front alloys are back and the PS4's fitted. should handle a little better now. Yes, that is a lot of tyre soap on the tyre. He must have had trouble getting them on!

Also got a replacement bottom engine support today. My support had started to dissolve away. not sure it would have made much of a difference but rather one fitted that is complete.

People that read through my somewhat long a mostly boring updates on my s2 rebuild thread will remember what a colossal nightmare I had when looking for shocks for the car. Well you glad to know the TT has also been a complete pain in the backside when it comes to buying shocks. It would appear that "sports suspension" shocks are difficult to get hold of, and the standard shocks are 25mm higher than the sports version so they are no good. So rather than beating my head against a brick wall for days on end and returning shock after shock. I bit the bullet and presses the buy now button on these. Bilstein B12 Pro-Kit Suspension Kit With B8 Shock Absorbers. If these don't fit then it won't be my toys that are getting chucked out of the pram, it will be the hold ****** pram getting chucked about. Have to say I'm not keen on the yellow and blue colours.... It's not very factory looking!

So tomorrow will involve more painting rust removal, and waiting for parts to arrive.

 

[desertstorm]

You can get quite decent pattern parts for those items now. You can buy the high and low pressure pipes seperately if you want. Think the low pressure pipe is around £55.

High + Low Pressure Power Steering Pipes Set For Audi TT 1998-2006 S3 00-03 | eBay

Power Steering Pipes Set (High + Low Pressure Cooling Pipe) Fits Audi S3 Quattro 1.8T 2000-2003 8L1 (210-224PS) <br>�. We are an authorised distributor for parts. Equivalent to Part Numbers: 8N0422893A, 8N042885A. If you order before 12PM we'll dispatch same day from our UK warehouse. For...

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[B5NUT]

Thanks. Figured they would be an Audi only part. I'll just keep an eye on these pipes and if they start to go then I will replace them.

 

[B5NUT]

New brake shields arrived yesterday, they are just patten parts as genuine ones are only available from tradition.

Coating looked a little thin, so they were immediately coated with a massive amount of epoxy

While I was painting the PAS pipes also got a thick coating, when it start it run it's the perfect amount

Also painted the clamps, brackets and inserts.

The PAS pipe under the car also got painted yesterday, they were in much better condition but still had rust in some places.

Also some toys arrived. All nice and shiny.

Next on the list to to put back all the PAS pipes and and refill the system, then clean the back of the engine and gearbox that is coated in oil and clean up the down pipe before the subframe goes back in.

 

[B5NUT]

So more progress on the TT over the last few days. Removed the leaking PAS pipe, no chance of repairing that.

It was also quite rusty, and would have taken a while to clean up.

Brakes came back from being blasted

Then were painted.

Once dry new seals were fitted. I also painted the pistons as the last ones were destroyed by rust.

However one of the seals was received damaged

So won't get a replacement until Tuesday

Drive shafts were rebuilt

Thankfully the solution of of the RS4 inner boots worked fine and they were identical to the TT boots, except they had the bit of metal attached to the boot that I chucked in the bin on the old ones!

Also pulled out boot clamp plier, as the outer boot as the plastic type I torqued them to factory spec. Trying to use the hand ear clamps would just not have worked.

Rebuilt the linkage. Was a lot easier removing the joints than fitting them. Had to push them in with the vice. Ball ends were painted with epoxy so they should not rust. Was also a complete sod to fill the plastic cup with grease.

Bushes were fitted to the bottom arms. Could really do with a third arm.

Started to fit parts to the subframe so it could be fitted first thing in the morning, It was as this point I found one of the ARB brackets was missing. I checked all my images and could only see the one bracket that had been painted. Eventually found the other bracket in the tub that all the old buts & bolts were in.

******

Crustier than a porcupine backside. That's not been fitted to the car.

So at 10pm in the evening the grinder was fired up.

Followed by the compressor and a few minutes in the blasting cabinet

Then a quick spray with epoxy. That was followed by 30 minutes in the oven at 50deg.

While I had the spray gun out I also painted the middle section of these bolts. They react with the salt, water and the alloy of the mount and seize in place, you just end up snapping the head off the bolt when trying to remove them. Kind of like the pinch bolt of hell of the A4, A6 & A8 models.

Subframe assembled ready for fitment.

Suspension was built up

 

[B5NUT]

Finally started bolting parts back on to the car.

Cleaned up the back of the engine where the cam cover had leaked all over it. Also cleaned up the near side driveshaft area where the boot had failed.

Subframe ready to to bolt on to the car, really could have done with an extra pair of hands fitting this.

New nuts for the subframe and other important suspension parts. About £60 worth of bolts there

Repaired the external temperature sensor mount by melting the plastic with the soldering iron and a bit of epoxy putty for extra strength. Would have just got a new one but they are NLA! It had snapped where the red line is.

had to get creative with the scissor jack, another job on the TT and extra hand would have been nice. Or Audi could have used a captive nut, like they did on the other bottom arm mount.

Shocks fitted

brakes on one side was fitted along with the headlight levelling parts, now just waiting on the other seal which should be with me tomorrow. Also need the vibration spring on the front calliper. old ones are not in good condition.

 

[B5NUT]

For the past few days I've been flat-out on the car. The front-end is just about complete apart from fitting some missing trim parts. So refitted the front wheels and the cats temporarily back on the car. Just so it can be turned around and I can start on the rear end.

Gave the cats a coat of high temp paint and the lower section of the down pipe, as it's heavily corroded around the flanges.

Started the strip down of the rear. Inner brake pad has stuck fast in the calliper. A BFH removed them.

Brackets holding the ABS cables on both sides has gone very thin, think the only option here is to grind the old one off and plug weld a new ones to the car

The state of the rear shocks is well just shocking! This has been going on for a few years and in my eye there should have been no way this should have passed it's last MOT with them fitted.

There was also little to no fluid left in them. The back wheels must have been bouncing around on the springs.

Looks like the rear suspension was parked in the sea.

Never seen inner CV's and output shafts so rusty.

Everything else was just as rusty, so the strip down began. Even with all the rust I got very lucky. Not one seized bolt, everything removed with out any issues, and never had to get the MAPP torch out either.


I would say this. I've never had to use a puller to remove a drive shaft from the hub before.

So after the first day I was down to this.

Second morning the subframe and diff came out.

So this pile of scrap is now to sort out

You will have noticed that I have two back sections of exhaust. The one fitted to the car has been badly repaired, and the welding is truly awful

Does not even align up correctly to the standard exhaust. You will notice the unmodified one on the right the front of the pipe is stuck up in the air, where as the front section of the repaired one is just paying on the ground.

Had to get a little creative removing the bushes in the arm. The bar is there to stop the arm being pushed upward.

Using my press and a sleeve kit, the axle guide was stripped of the bearing and the 3 bushes.

Both gone for shot blasting along with a lot of other parts.

Rear towing eye bracket was removed so I can get to the rust behind it. That's also off for blasting & coating. However I got a call from the basters say the part was scrap as it looked like a paper doily at the bottom, so a replacement was need to be found

Next up will be attacking the body work with different power tools. That's if it ever stops raining.

 

[B5NUT]

Been working on the interior while parts were away for blasting and the weather improves slightly.

Even the back seats seats were nasty

Found an old Nokia phone kit had been installed at some point in the cars early life. So it was all ripped out.

Check out the speaker mounted behind the glovebox

So some of the interior was ripped out

Replaced the single din cage with the TT faceplate, as the one fitted to my TT looked like had been attacked by something with sharp teeth. Or with someone wearing rings and liked to punch the plate open!

Gave the carpet a quick hover before it was washed. Surprising how well it came up with just a hover.

The carpet was washed and the dirt that came out of them was unreal. Think I went through about 3 tanks before what was coming out was clean.

They came up very well in the end. The Dyson got put in the car to help dry the carpet.

Before I washed the carpet the interior trim got cleaned, as it was all very grim

This was the dirt dripping of the upper trim.

They came up well after been given a good scrub with hot water and APC and a shoe brush.

While the interior was drying the seats were cleaned. I do have some leather cleaner that you spray on, however as these were so dirty they got the same hot water and APC treatment.

Don't know if it's just me but I could not drive around with an interior looking, feeling and smelling like it did. I would hate to think my house looked like that! Anyway it's not perfect but I please with the end result.

While I had the centre console out I removed the handbrake cables. No amount of rust converter and epoxy can fix these. More scrap for the bin.

 

[B5NUT]

Most of the work on the car over the last few days has all been on the underside. Just finding any rust under the underseal and cleaning it away. I'm hoping in the next few days the underside of the car will be painted and any seam sealer reapplied. While that's been going on a few other jobs have been taken care off.

Tig welded new weld pins to the tank straps as the old ones had snapped off and the last garage just drilled a hole in them and shoved a self tapping screw through.

Also had to tig a new weld pin to the axle guide as the old one had snapped off.

Crack in the exhaust was also fixed.

My tig welding still needs a massive amount of improvement.

Still it's better that what was done to the old one.

Have to say I'm glad I got the TIG welder. Ok so my welding is not the best at the moment, but I'm not doing any structural welding. I also got stick to death of going to places and asking for a simple welding job, and they would stand there sucking air through their teeth like I'd just rocked up with the titanic and asked for a patch job

Bushes for the Axle guide through me a little. It appeared the old one were more of a rose joint type, with rubber seals at the end. These are NLA and have been for many years it would appear. Audi move to a more normal bush.

To get these in the press and pull sleeve it came out, rather then using the hydraulic press. This tool that has saved me lots of time and money over the years, it was well worth the investment.

What I don't like about the replacement bushes is that they are longer that the hole in the axle guide. So was a pain to try and get them even both sides.

The hydraulic press was then used to press this bush in

And the bearing

Sill on the subject of bushes, I finally popped my poly bush cherry.. The original bushes are NLA and there appears to be no third party ones available. The original bushes themselves were in good condition, however they were plastic sleaved and were being distorted in the mount by rust, so had no choice but to press them out and go down the poly bush route.

 

[desertstorm]

Looking good. The underside of most TT's seems to look like the titanic. My rear shockers looked similar to yours. They didn't leak and still appeared to have a good amount of resistance is them . The inside of the car looks to have come up pretty good.

 

[B5NUT]

I've taken parts from 3 TT's so far and they were all rotten in the same places. The mounts that hold the rear ABS cables. The rear of the sill's and the inner arches where the sill's mount to. Also around the rear wowing eye. I'm please with the interior, and it has come up well. Just looking forward to drive the car, which I'm hoping will now be in the next couple of weeks.

 

[B5NUT]

Received the brackets. These are available from VW classic which will ship to the UK.

Couple of holes were drilled into the brackets and they were plug welded to the car

Tried to remove the diff earth point. Even with a bit of heat it just snapped off the chassis of the car. It was rusted solid

Cleaned up the area and used a stainless steal bolt, washers and nut to make up a new earth post

Tested the post with the welder, when I was plug welding the brackets on the car. It just needs cutting down a little

Over the last few days the rear underside of the car has been painted. It's had 2 coats of epoxy, then seam sealer where the old stuff was removed. Finally a 3rd coat of epoxy followed by a coat of base colour on the arches and then a couple of coats of 2K clear on the arches. Still need to paint some areas under the car with a 3rd coat but ran out of epoxy

The finish is OK, but it's not the tidiest around where the brushable seam sealer has been applied.

Downside to spraying the arches is all the masking that is required. My pet hate is masking up cars.

Finally with the painting done parts are able to go back on the car.

With old earth strap in bits, I wanted to find a better solution. So when I was taking some parts of a TT that was being broken, I picked one of the earth straps used near the battery. After a quick modification it looks like it will work quite nicely.

 

[desertstorm]

Same thing happened to the earth point on my car. That earth strap is not the original one is it. The OE one is aluminium that rots. Very common problem.

 

[B5NUT]

No that is not the orignal. Like your strap mine also rotted away and snapped when I tried to remove it. Wanted a permanent solution so came up with that cable.

 

[B5NUT]

Let me start this post with a rant. Who in gods name designed that rear suspension setup. It's been the biggest pain in the backside to rebuild of any Audi I've ever touched. Let me first start with the upper inner wishbone bolt, you cannot get the bolt in if the froward subframe bolts has been fitted. So I've wasted £14 on two bolts. I could have fitted one bolt from the other direction, however I prefer to fit bolts in the direction of travel, and the other way the diff gets in the way so not a chance on the other side.

The next steaming pile of dung is the change from the rose joint bushes to the hard rubber bushes. As the arms come in form a slight angle you could move the old bushes to meet the arm correctly. With the new ones you have to try and rotate the wishbones so they align, and then getting a bolt in to align with the holes. O the fun that was had! Ratchet straps to bring every thing together and then pipe wench on the wishbone to twist the wishbone so I could get the bolt through the holes. There has been a fair amount of paint scraped so will have to go around the touch everything up with epoxy.

Finally the shock bolts even they were a pain to get in. The first one you fit is easy enough but the second is a complete pain as the suspension is in full droop when I was fitting everything, so it putts the shock at a slight angle, but if you try and push the suspension to normal ride height then the shock want to push past the hole. Think I spent 30 minutes just getting one of the upper shocker bolts in.

Anyway rant over, think it took me about a day to get the hole rear suspension fitted. Never want to touch the backend again.


So another rubbish design means the backing plate has to be fitted before the hub is pressed in. The Axle guide already weighs a metric ton, so you have to be O so careful when trying to hold the axle to try and keep it square, get the hub to sit square to the bearing and use your third hand to operate the press leaver. It really is a two man job.

With the axle rebuilt the hole rear suspension was loosely fitted to the car

Then had to get the car on it's wheels.

With a bit of extra weight added to the boot as the rollbar, exhaust, bumper, rear seats and some interior rims were all missing.

This is all to aid the axle guide to be in the correct position, As I'm not using factory springs the information in Elsawin is not relevant. So with 1/2 a tank of fuel and the weight, I was able to put line across the guide to show to angle the plate should be. So with the wheel removed from the car and it back on axle stands the guide was lowered and the bolt tightened to 90nm while trying to make sure the plate does not move while your tightening the bolt. Once that bolt was done the car was back on it's wheels so all the other bolts could be torqued to the correct specification.

Also replaced these vents. The old ones had rubber seals which when wet expanded and fail. New ones just have a rubber seal fitted.

 

[B5NUT]

A couple of small jobs done today.

Changed the fuel filter, no idea how long it's been on the car. It's was unknown aftermarket, however when the last person changed it they only clipped in one of the pipes to the filter the other was just pushed on. New Bosch filter fitted.

Also changed the pollen filter don't think it's been done in the last 10+ years

 

[B5NUT]

Fitted the rear callipers I refurbished. Mainly blasted them, coat of epoxy and new seals.

Just need to sort the brake pipe coming from the ABS pump to the flexi's.

One of the final bodged jobs to fix. So if the weld stud fails the best option is to drill 1 or 2 holes in the chassis (Guess the first one hit something sold behind it) and shove a self tapping screw in there. I guess it's the usual with granges, get the car in and get it out as quick as possible!

So welded up the holes and welded on a new weld stud. It will need to be cut down a little. Also applied a bit too much epoxy.

For the TT Audi used these to hold the rear undertray trims in place, and they are awful to remove.

I prefer to use these. They are used on the A6, A7 & A8 models to hold the trims in place. As they are plastic they won't rust solid and cause the pins to snap off.

I guess it's just a cost saving measure. The metal clips are about 50p each where the plastic nuts are about £1.50 each! Although I'm sure they are both just pennies to Audi.

 

[B5NUT]

So further work has been done on the car. Was hoping to get it finished this weekend but life and the weather has gotten in the way. I'm hoping it's done this week as I want to get the new screen fitted towards the end of the week.

So one of the few remaining jobs on the list was the rear brake pipes. I knew someone had replaced them in the past as they were copper and Audi don't use copper pipes. I had to cut the end that went into the flexi as the fittings were so rusty they had clamped themselves to the copper line and would just twist the pipe when turned. So a few weeks back they were just cut off and I spent a bit of time thinking things over on how best to fix the issue.

In the end I decided to buy the OEM pipes as they are still available and were just over £30 each. Now the down side of doing the job was having to drop the fuel tank. Thankfully I did not have to fully remove it as that would have entailed removing the rear subframe, diff and suspension lines. I did remove the prop as it's been leaking grease past the CV joint, so I need to clean that up put some fresh grease in there and get a new seal. I'm also going to replace the prop bearing and bush while I'm there.

Now back to the brake pipes. Have to say I'm relived that I did replace them. As this is what the last garage or owner did to attach one of the rear brake lines. That right, Silicone sealant. I was just lost for words when I found this one. I've never seen pipes attached to a car using silicone sealant, It was well hidden behind the heat shields so no one could see the bodge as I'm sure if an MOT inspector had seen that they would have failed the car.

The bodged pipes were removed and the new pipe work fitted. Looks so much more professional with the OEM lines. I've also gone for the OEM brake pipe fittings rather the bathroom sealant!

I've blead the brake a little just to get fluid to the callipers, but did not have enough fluid to fully blead them over the weekend, will pop over to the VW garage tomorrow for some more fluid.

 

[B5NUT]

So have been pushing to get this car finished, and I'm not far off thankfully.

Removed a massive amount of double sided tape from the boot lid. Including the screw holes I counted that car has had at least 5 number plates in it's life.

The prop shaft was removed as it was clear the seal had failed as there was grease all over the place

It's also been hitting the heatshield

With that the prop bearing looked a little knackered. The bearing was OK, just the rubber had gone very soft. So it was stripped down. This was a lot easier to work on than the S2 prop.

The Flange was pulled off along with the bearing

A socket and a hammer was then used to gently press the new bearing on the saft.

The bolt that holds the flange on was the torqued up.

Finally the prop was stripped of rust and painted.

The prop is now back on the car. So the next job is the handbrake cables and guides refit the rear covers. Then finally refit the exhaust and the car should be just about done.

 

[B5NUT]

So the last few reaming jobs have been done on the car. Just a couple left before the MOT

Tidied up the rusty bits of the exhaust

New rubbers for the front & middle section

Rear hangers were just refurbished as the rubbers were in very good condition. Just the metal work that was rusty.

The cats and the exhaust was was fitted. At that point the car was of the axle stands and on it's wheels.

Rear seats were refitted

Boot trims and floor was refitted. Still not that happy with the boot folding floor so on the look out for a better one

Got a parcel shelf from a breaker for £20.

Then realised two of the mounting points are missing.

Finally found some today.

Scuttle trim was removed, as the area needed cleaning and it had to be removed for the new windscreen. My screen had a crack and it was also delaminating. Every TT that I want to see had some delamination around the screen. I guess it's an age thing!

New screen getting fitted. Really happy with the job these guy's did, and they did a far better job than Autoglass did on my S2.

New scuttle trim was fitted after swapping over the washer jets

All the brakes were blead. and the handbrake was adjusted. It was at this point I found one the rear callipers was knackered.

Quick call to my local automotive store and 30 minutes later a replacement calliper was delivered.

Wish I had opened a trade account years ago it makes getting car parts soo much quicker and easier.

New calliper fitted, handbrake adjusted and now the brakes working as they should.

So my one and only bodge on the car! For the last couple of weeks I've been looking for an undertray locally and had no luck at all. The undertray that came with the car was is in a poor state. The had been snapped in 2. and loads of cracks all over it. However I prefer to run one on that car, so with that I bodged the one I had an I'm hoping to find a replacement in the next few weeks. The two parts were joined together using bits of old undertray and some plastic rivets. The two sections were then welded together using a hot iron to melt the plastic together. Red line shows where the tray had snapped in half.

I know it's not the greatest repair but it's only temporary, until I source a new tray.

Engine bay trims were refitted. looks so much better than when I got it. still needs a bit of trim renovator on the plastics.

Some of the scrap that came off the car. Still need to chop up the old exhaust

Car is finally on it's wheels. Ready for it's MOT. Still a few daft little jobs to do but nothing that will affect the MOT. I'm glad it's over as the gritters were out in force this evening and snow is forecast for next week, so want the TT ready ASAP as I don't want to use the S2 until the weather improves.

Really looking forward to getting this on the road. It's a cracking little car and I'm glad I've saved it from the breakers. As I've no doubt if I had not purchased this TT it would have gone to some who would have sold it for parts, then had the rest crushed. Hopefully it will last another 10/20 years.

 

[B5NUT]

Few more updates on the car, as I've sorting out a few more jobs. I noticed the car had a slight fluctuation on the rev's and looking at some threads on the TT forum, it would appear that the culprit is most likely the throttle body. So of it came for a bit of a clean then an alignment using VCDS.

It was not too bad, so cleaned it up and performed the throttle body alignment. Which for the moment appears to have sorted the issue.

While I was there with VCDS I did a scan of the car and cleared all the fault codes that were on the car from when I got it. The only fault that came back was the alarm horn. These are know to fail because some bright spark at the Ministry of crap design figured it would be a good idea to put the batteries inside the unit and then fully seal it up, so the only way to get at them is to cut the thing open. Which is what I did next and the result was just what I'd been expecting, one completely destroyed circuit board. Not a cat in hell's chance of fixing that so it's in the bin.

So I've ordered a second hand unit with the later revised part number. They also have the same issue, however if I plug it in and it works then I will cut that open and replace the batteries. Will see what turns up in the next couple of days.

Another job ticked off the list is the front grills. They looked like they were covered in white polish residue, however on closer inspection it was almost like they had been painted before and the old paint had started to fade away. So I used the same paint I used on the external S2 B pillars trims. Lechler Tecnogrip. This stuff is really very good and the trims I paint still look like new 6 months later so used it on the TT grills

Final job ticked off the list before the MOT. Drivers door lock replaced, so now the drivers side window drops a little when you open the door. Have to say it's dirty has hell in there and will need a good clean out but that's when the better/warmer weather comes.

One failed door lock.

Well I say failed it's the microswitch behind this clip that's failed.

 

[B5NUT]

MOT Day was yesterday. Another job out of the way

 

[desertstorm]

Nice to see a TT getting some good quality TLC. Car is looking good and hopefully will pay you back with some reliability. Did the MOT tester say anything about the state of the underside? Most TT's look like the Titanic with the amount of rust and crud that seems to accumulate on the suspension. All due to the salt spreading we have in this country. TT's in countries that don't use salt in the winter are a lot less rusty.
I dismantled the alarm siren on my car and it was similar to yours. I bought a second hand newer one and changed the batteries and it did work for a while until I parked the car in the garage for a few months and the batteries failed again. As long as the car is used regularly the batteries seem to be ok.

 

[B5NUT]

I did get a complement on the quality of the work which was nice to hear. Have to agree on the rust issues with the TT, so many of the breaker cars I've been to see were rotten and it's one of the main reasons the car were being broken. I've also ordered Lanoguard which I will put on the car over the weekend if it arrives tomorrow. I would like this to be as rust free as possible as it will be used as my daily driver. The gritters were out again this evening so would like to add that extra layer of protection.

I did order a newer alarm unit, and it arrived today. Unfortunately that was also dead so the batteries must have failed in that unit. have already messaged the seller so will see what they say. If I can get a working unit then I will modify it with an external battery pack so it can be replaced as and when., however the chance of finding a used working unit is going to be slim, as they are at best going to be 8 year old on a 2014 Seat Exeo. You can still buy them new but are around £190!

 

[Markjb]

I'm in awe of your rebuilds. I first followed the A6 C6 Avant and recently came across your S2 and now this. Amazing work