I also discovered that my right side engine mount is collapsed so that will have to be replaced too. And, my right side hub is very loose in int housing. Is that normal or should I be doing wheel bearings too?
Disassembled both front struts today. Wasn't too hard.
The only problem is the free Bilsteins I have aren't going to fit. They are off a later model. So, I need some inserts. Koni or Bilstein. Can't seem to find them in stock anywhere. Anyone have any sitting around?
Need quite a few parts before I can put this thing back together. namely:
Blue upper mounts
Dampers, Koni preferred
Front 86-2086 sport 2-6 weeks
Rear 86-2087 sport in stock at Koni
Front Strut bellows
End link
Wheel bearings
heater valve
coolant G12 or regular green stuff?
Exhaust donut
This thread is actually perfect and i will tell you why. I love the old UR Quattros--and even the regular 4000 Quattro sedan. One of the coolest cars from the 1980's. It is very exciting to see someone getting one of these cars in nice looking shape like this one is. makes you want to try and go find one.
the other thing that is perfect about this thread is seeing the reality of how involved it is taking a car like this from this era (even a great example like this one) and trying to make it right mechanically. so many things can be worn out or broken by now, and there isn't a great deal of support in carrying out the needed work. Makes me maybe not want to go and find one
Love the car. hope you are able to get it fully sorted out.
This thread is actually perfect and i will tell you why. I love the old UR Quattros--and even the regular 4000 Quattro sedan. One of the coolest cars from the 1980's. It is very exciting to see someone getting one of these cars in nice looking shape like this one is. makes you want to try and go find one.
the other thing that is perfect about this thread is seeing the reality of how involved it is taking a car like this from this era (even a great example like this one) and trying to make it right mechanically. so many things can be worn out or broken by now, and there isn't a great deal of support in carrying out the needed work. Makes me maybe not want to go and find one
Love the car. hope you are able to get it fully sorted out.
Thanks onlyaudis. makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Or perhaps that's the single malt I'm halfway through. Have a great weekend.
Koni inserts are on their way from a fellow URQ owner. Thanks Martin. I've found nice German top mounts and wheel bearings and most of the other parts I need. Still looking for the anti roll bar bushings and I'm not sure if I want to spend over $200 on an OE ball joint.
Took my struts and control arms to see my Freind Mat at MCE Tuning. He pressed out the wheel bearings for me no problem.
Old worn out bearing on the floor.
Inner race stayed on the hub! Mat got ot off.
Then cleaned up the wheel bearing hosings so the new bearings will go in nicely.
Next I start working on getting the control arm bushings out.
With parts sourced over the weekend it's time to tackle the rear suspension but I'm clearly not going to get at these from the trunk. Not with an impact gun anyway.
Had to take the back seats out. Looks like a race car :)
Had to use my bendy and impact gun to get the strut nuts off.
Everything loose, legs hanging. Had to use the ball joint tool kit again but now I'm an expert they just fell off.
My quattro is now "legless"!
The wheel bearings are better than the fronts but I think I'm going to change them anyway. Ball joints and tie rods seem ok so they can stay. Not excited about removing the strut inserts on these though. A lot rustier looking than the fronts were :( The left handbrake cable looks a little worse for wear but I have a pair on the way.
I got the rear struts apart yesterday. They were not as bad as I thought. I held the nut in a vice, applied heat and hit the steering arm with a hammer till it came loose.
People have suggested powder coating all the suspension components while they are off the car. I have been reluctant to do this as I am trying to not restore the car but maintain its originality. However, looking at the surface rust on the rear struts I feel I must at least POR15 the springs, rear struts and top hats just to preserve them.
With that in mind I degreased them with Marine Clean yesterday after removing loose rust with a wire brush.
Today, if I get chance, I will prep them and paint them with POR15 black.
Huge parts haul today. Coolant, front wheel bearings, top mounts, handbrake cables. Control arm bushings etc.
I think I may be starting put the car back together. After installing the new heater control valve I added coolant and put the steering arms back in the car today.
After that I dropped off the control arms and bushings at a friend's so he can attack them with his new press.
Time to start putting this car back together but one question to resolve before I do that is where to set the adjustable KONI inserts.
I like a responsive ride, my other car's a race car, but don't want to ruin the ride quality especially as you have to take these buggers
out again to adjust them. So where to begin, #1, #2, #5?. Anyone have any experience with these?
I started to re-assemble the front struts this afternoon. Pressed in the wheel bearings.
Pressed the hub on and inserted the Koni inserts.
Need to decide on settings before I install the springs. Currently on 2 out of 5. Anyone know where these go?
The POR15 was a bit glossy so I went over the top hats and springs with some flat black.
I also re-installed the control arms and new right side ball joint. If I get chance tomorrow I'll install the springs then put the front struts back on the car!
I just picked up a near mint 1 owner red 84 quattro sedan (see my recent post) I am blaming you for this! I should have known better than to read the classic audi posts here and on Vortex
I just picked up a near mint 1 owner red 84 quattro sedan (see my recent post) I am blaming you for this! I should have known better than to read the classic audi posts here and on Vortex
Semi productive day today. I was hoping to have the car back on its wheels, maybe even driving but alas, I was thwarted by a wrong part. Seems I have a ball joint for a 4000 instead. Bugger!
Still, I got all four struts assembled and the Konis set. I went with 1 turn on the fronts, 1.5 in the rear. If I don't like it they are easy to adjust.....NOT!
Installed all but the right front strut on the car. Even that is technically on the car. Just hanging from the upper mount for now. I ordered a TSW ball joint from Rock Auto as a back up. OE versions are very pricey. Tomorrow I will search locally for a decent one. If I can't find one I'll wait for the TSW one. That's what's already on the left side anyway.
Hopefully, if I get time tomorrow I'll drop the rear on the ground and tighten all the bolts, put the rear seats back in and maybe, if I can find some, replace the blown rear speakers. I guess I could also drop and tighten the front left too. I can also install the new catalytic converter gasket and cinch that up so I can start the engine and burp the coolant. Then an alignment and we drive it. Damn, wish I had a ball joint.
So, thirty years ago a small, select group of Audi engineers sat down together to eat pizza and hatch a cunning plan. "I know..." proffers one
particularly sneaky engineer "...... let's build a 4wd turbo car that looks just like the Coupe GT but uses non of its parts. NONE. This will really
mess with their heads in about thirty years time. HAH!"
See, it wasn't about rally at all. It was just a German practical joke!
It's funny what you'll do while your waiting for parts. I decided to have a look at the aftermarket speakers on the rear parcel shelf. They are ugly and sound really tinny.
Oh my! How do we improve on this situation? What is the OE configuration like? Anyone have an original parcel shelf? With speakers?
I tried some other speakers in there but they were too bg and still sounded tinny. Maybe my acoustic issue lies somewhere else.
Still no sign of another (probably wrong) balljoint so I decided to pull out the passenger seat. Why? Severe case of wobble-bottom due to suspected worn slider bushings. BTW easiest seat extraction ever!
Or non existent slider bushings.
Oh, here it is. Hiding in the slider rail. Yuk.
and here's the new ones I surreptitiously picked up off eBay. Yes, I did buy two sets but the driver's seat is not so bad just yet. maybe, when my wrong balljoint gets here I will decide it is aweful and swap them too.
Here, that's better.
Then, really desperate, I downloaded this to play through my new OE stereo.
Great work as always! Any more info on the seat removal? Haven't done it before so just wanted to know a rough idea of how it goes down.
Thanks AudiCoupeGT. The seat removal was surprisingly easy. The most difficult part was reconnecting the seat heater wiring plug after reinstallation. Some of the pins didn't want to line up so had to jer...jer..jer..jiggle it a bit. To remove the seats you remove the end cap from the rails, one screw each, and the stop on the center slider/adjuster and just slide the seat out of its rails backwards. Couldn't be easier. Fold it forward and pull it out. Oh, you have to open the door too.
OK, I know, it's not OE and will probably wear out in about 10,000 miles but it's a tenth of the price!
So here it is, finally, back on all fours.
So i fired up the quattro and backed it out to get it up to temperature. I needed to burp the cooling system and test my new heater valve. Heater valve works but still runs a little warm at full cold. It is not closing fully though it did on the bench. I think a small cable adjustment should take care of things.
Then I took it out for a test drive. I must say the Kraftwerk worked perfectly. Exactly as described. New suspension's not bad either. Initially the new dampers seemed crashy over small bumps but soon settled down. I was a little surprised that the dampers did not feel stiffer as I set them around half their range. I couldn't really get on it though as the front anti roll bar is still off and I only have an eyeball alignment. I'm sure I'm going to be very happy with it once it's aligned and fully together next week.
I put the old speakers back in place but didn't reconnect them. The front are fine for now. Would love to get a replacement parcel shelf and original speakers though. Anyone?
I also installed the new cat gasket/donut but I think it's still blowing a bit :(
So I'm done for now. There's quite a few things on my original hit list that I didn't do yet and a few new ones but it's time to drive this thing.
I took the car down to Auto Europe for an alignment Tuesday.
My eyeballed alignment was way off as you might imagine but Charles whipped it back into shape.
So i've only put a few dozen miles on the car and the front anti-roll bar is missing but this beast has been transformed. No more boings and rattles from the loos suspension, goes where you point it and is very responsive. Just rolls a bit in corners as you might imagine. So everything is good. Not quite..........radiator started leaking yesterday. just a little froom the top seam:
and maybe the core
Can this be fixed, perhaps in situ? I don't want a new radiator as I love the look of the aged brass top.
I also have a small leak now from the power steering regulator but haven't yet isolated the source.
It never raiins but it pours (or weeps) with these cars. :):(
Recored UR Quattro radiator. I asked them not to paint it but now have to decide what to do to it. I was hoping to retain the original look with some of the black paint still on the top with the aged brass showing through but it rather got cleaned off in the process. Do I need to paint the core or can I leave the whole thing raw?
This is what it looked like before and what I hoped to retain:
So I decided not to paint anything, just threw it back into the car and drove it to the local track event by way of a shakedown. I hope everyone's cool with that.
Next on the list is to figure out why my washers don't work anymore. Low flow, just dribbles out. I also need to get the anti roll bar back on, detail it and rebalance the wheels. Then, hopefully, I can enjoy the car for a few months, so long as the clutch lasts. It feels awefully high on the pedal lately.
I actually kinda like the look of the radiator! Perhaps the washer nozzles/ lines are clogged up?
Ah, at last. Someone who is as crazy as me. LOL
I thought of that but it effects all four nozzles so I imagine it's either a crimoed line (briefly checked) or the pump. I suspect the pump but haven't had chance to delve into it yet. Are they still available?
Just checked this thread otu. Great job on the car. I know fo one for sale, but definately not in this condition that Im thinking about buying. Not sure I am brave enough though with so much NLA for these.
I understand. It can be a bit daunting but worth it IMHO. Of coarse, if you ask me during a rebuild of something you might get a different answer LOL
Originally Posted by Eurotuned_A4
Just checked this thread otu. Great job on the car. I know fo one for sale, but definately not in this condition that Im thinking about buying. Not sure I am brave enough though with so much NLA for these.
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Originally Posted by onlyaudis
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