85 UR quattro

I made this heat shield today. Still needs paint. Silver or black?

Much progress today:

Painted the heat shield and installed it. Yep, went with silver for more heat reflectance.

Replaced the seals in the transmission while the paint was drying.

Installed the exhaust manifold and turbo.

and the down pipe.

I tried to install the waste gate but I'm going to need new studs. They don't semm to have part numbers though. How do I order them?

how am i just now seeing this thread? so much excellence going on in here.

i have lusted after a 80-90's era 5 cylinder audi for much of my life. the urQ is right up there with the first of a handful of cars i'd buy if i ever come into the funds to properly take care of it. love how brutish and raw they are.

great example you've got and fine job bringing it slowly back into its prime. looking forward to hearing this thing scream.

ScottyB wrote: how am i just now seeing this thread? so much excellence going on in here. i have lusted after a 80-90's era 5 cylinder audi for much of my life. the urQ is right up there with the first of a handful of cars i'd buy if i ever come into the funds to properly take care of it. love how brutish and raw they are. great example you've got and fine job bringing it slowly back into its prime. looking forward to hearing this thing scream.

Me too ScootyB, me too.

I had a very productive afternoon then suffered what may or may not be a major setback. Read on.

I installed the intake manifold.

engine mounts

Then was installing the chains to lift it off the engine stand when it suddenly spun over and knocked off the down pipe!

As you might imagine I was quite devastated but upon inspection I think I may be alight. There's a slip fit and a weld just after the turbo which is where it broke. I think I can get it welded back together. The orientation is critical though so I left the rest of it bolted to the turbo. I'm going to wait till I get the hardware for the wastgate, dry fit it all then mark the orientation before having someone weld it up. Hopefully.

I had a cup of tea then carried on. Installed the flywheel next

]

then the clutch

followed by the clutch release bearing

Fortunately I got my chain lengths just right so they lined up pretty well.

and slid together without much of a fight.

I checked the timing marks and it was spot on :)

so put the timing cover on for the first time since I have owned the car.

So, I have now bolted together as many parts as I could and so I'm going to take a break for a few weeks while I fix the transmission in my 911. More broken German stuff!

OK, so a few weeks turned into a few months. It happens. Would really like to drive it this summer so cracking on. Today replacing the prop shaft seal.

Once this is back together this is all that's left on my list:

15 Rear trans seal 16 Refurb power steering system 17 Refurb CIS 18 Clean engine bay 19 Replace brake line 20 Refurb strut tops 21 Fix down pipe 22 Install waste gate 23 Trans oil 24 Attach subframe 25 Install engine, trans, sub frame 26 Reconnect ancillaries 27 Fire up 28 Test drive 29 alignment

Piece of cake.

Replacing the diff lock actuator today I managed to brake the clip that attaches it to the actuator rod. NLA but ECS say they have one. We will see.

I'm thinking the next phase should be to refurbish the hydraulic system before I pt the engine back in. It powers the steering and brakes and seems to be wet in its entirety. What is typically replaced. Should I refurbish the steering rack too?

I was going to replace the rear brake line yesterday then this happened.

So I said F-it and went to the track instead. I did come back later and straightened my spool of exotic Audi brake line.

Need to make it look like this somehow:

I guess I'm going to need some new tools; and a new tool box.

What's so special about the Audi brake line? Made from spotted owl eggs?

Heavily invested in brake line tools now. Worked though. I just need some more brake projects to justify the investment.

I started at the master cylinder end and taped the new line to the old line as I went. The flare went well but I couldn't get the first bend as close to the fitting as the factory but it looks OE enough in my opinion.

I'm glad I replaced the rear brake line as it fell apart after it saw it's replacement and cried tears of brake fluid.

To my surprise it actually fir very well. I mean, it should right considering it was virtually a copy of the original. Things like this generally do not go this well for me though. I had to replace a few clips with new unfortunately.

Me bleedin' bleed nipples are bleedin' rusted to buggery in the rear and as I replaced the rear brake line I now have to bleed the buggers! #URQuattroFun

Later; I need a break from brakes. Next up: Transmission linkage stabilizer which is NLA, of course and then the hydraulic system.

What's that blue thingy next to the table?

Todd

Time to address the shift link stabilizer. Number 35 in this diagram. The plastic sockets on the ends wear and it is NLA (No Longer Available).

Mine's a little loose so let's build a new one.

Now it's NPA (NO Problem Anymore)

Decided to take out the steering rack, hydraulic pump, accumalator and reservoir en masse. Seems as if every bit of it is leaking.

Steering rack

At brake master cylinder

Et voila!

Now what?

My apologies, it's been a while since I have updated this thread and that's because it's been a while since I worked on the car. My wife's A3 booted the Quattro off the hoist a while back and I've since been too busy with the parts business to get it back on. Well that change this weekend when I found the hoist vacant along with my schedule. So on it went, again.

I am waiting for a friend to figure out how to replace the hydraulic hoses while using the original fittings so I thought I'd tackle bleeding the brakes which, of course required freeing up the rusted bleed nipples in the calipers. Well I only broke two off, left front and left rear!

How do I fix these? I imagine it involves removing the calipers which I managed quite easily on the left front but the left rear is fighting me. I managed to unhook the handbrake cable from the lever but the outer sheath looks like it's fused to the caliper in it's seat.

[IMG] [/IMG]

I'm also struggling to get the brake union on the inner fender separated.

I left them soaking in PB Blast overnight. Think that will work?

More progress but nothing picture worthy, sorry. I managed to free up both the handbrake cable and the brake line union yesterday but was less successful with the brake calipers. Unless you count that I was able to remove the rear caliper and place it on the bench that is.

So I cut a slit in the front caliper's bleed screw, or at least what was left of it. The stub was protruding about 4mm so there was quite a bit to work with. I had hit it with PB Blaster again when I got there so that had had an hour to soak in. I heated it as much as I could with a propane torch then with CFC Freeze Off and then heated again. I then hit it with my impact screwdriver and guess what? No, it didn't come right out; it broke right off flush with the caliper :(

Needless to say I didn't move on to the rear caliper.

So what's next, drilling it out and re-tapping, reverse drilling? New car?

I found a few hours to work on the car today. I basically pulled off more parts. Gotta start installing parts.

Tried EasyOut on one of the seized bleeders. FAIL

So turned my attention to the CIS injection system because you can never have enough parts on the floor.

Then started thinking about getting the downpipe welded back together. If you remember it separated after the engine stand let go and allowed the engine to rotate! This meant reassembling everything on the engine so I could mark the orientation which might be important.

SUCCESS! Las night, with a lot of help from my mein Freund Werner and some Rojo Red for lubrication we drilled out the seized bleeder screws from the brake calipers.

We first established a pilot hole all the way through the bottom of the bleeder then chased that with a tap drill being carful to stop once we reached the end of the threads.

Because the tip of the bleeder was smaller than the tap drill it was left loose in the bottom of the hole and after cleaning out the threads was easily extracted.

Obviously a lot of debris found it's way into the piston chamber, especially as we cleaned out the other threads too, so we dismantled them with a view to giving them a thorough cleaning and any needed replacement parts. Right now they look to be in good condition though so I'll probably just reassemble them.

While waiting for parts to come in I decided it might be a good idea to take inventory of all the spare parts I already have and make a list. This was prompted by the realization that I have recently ordered parts that I already have in my collection of parts bins! Let the list making begin.

Used parts:

New parts: (yes, we sell Corbaeu seats)

Take offs (used to be on the car)

Turns out I have a lot of spare parts, 129 separate items if I include take offs and lumping together most of the removed AC stuff. I tried to figure out part numbers for everything and got pretty close. I did discover that about a dozen parts I inherited from the PPO (previous previous owner) aren't actually for a UR Quattro so that was good to know.

Finally got my Unicorn clips from Germany. AKA actuator clips. I only need one but got a few spares.

All the bits needed to make the center diff actuate.

Installed

Popped the waste gate back on the other day. Doesn't seem to use a gasket!

Then this arrived. Can you guess what it is?

Repaired down pipe curtesy of [URL="http://www.thompsonracingfabrication.com/"]Thompson Racing Fabrication[/URL] (TRF)

I don't know much about welding but it can't be easy to weld stainless steel to cast iron. Apparently Audi didn't do a good job the first time.

I'm not installing it yet as the engine will want to lean on it while it's sitting on the dolly.

I did remove the leaking coolant reservoir though Yep, the more parts I install the more I remove. Even with the engine out Audi found a way to make it difficult to remove. This is leaking from the seam around the top. Any ideas about repairing it or does it have to be replaced. Can it be replaced?

I took the subframe back out so I could clean off thirty years of oil and grime from the engine bay with a toothbrush and some degreaser.

The photos really don't show the difference but it is quite a transformation. Before:

After:

Where is your showroom? I moved back to MI this summer and would love tocome check it out sometime.

Storz wrote: Where is your showroom? I moved back to MI this summer and would love tocome check it out sometime.

You should. It's in Pontiac. Viewing by appointment LOL. Afternoons and evenings are best plus weekends if I'm in town. Just let me know what works for you.

Inspired by the clean engine bay I thought I'd go parts shopping. First thing to show up was this new hall sensor for the distributor. The old one broke the connector off during engine extraction but was marginal anyway. This one is meant for a Ford but seems to be a match. Not ready to disassemble the distributor right now though.

I managed to find a used coolant reservoir locally. This is after I cleaned it out. It is a slightly different shape on top but has the same part number. At least it's not in-your-face-shiny-new looking.

I thought it might be an idea to pressure test it so enlisted my bike pump. Gave it 22psi and a bath. No bubbles and it held that pressure overnight. I guess we pressure tested the pump too.

I sent off the steering rack for a refresh to [URL="http://www.jorgenauto.com/"]Jorgen Automotive[/URL]. They seem to be the authority in these matters and are only 45 minutes west of me. Sent it Monday, got it back Wednesady! Amazing turnaround. I specifically asked them not to bead blast the body as I wanted to retain the patina. Normally they would be like new when they are done.

I also sent out the turbo for rebuild but that won't be back till next week at the earliest.

Not sure what to tackle next. Might refurbish the wiper mechanism as it's slow and I can stand in the engine bay to work on it. I could open up troubleshooting the CIS system but that's probably too a big job for my current schedule, or I could add some relays to the headlights as they are a lot more accessible with the engine out. Damn, everything is a lot more accessible with the engine out on this thing.