Am I Mad?

It was missing the spring clip and fell out! The lower front panel was broken as well besides being in very poor condition. Some previous owner had had out to add something extra (USB etc?). Evidence of meddling with wiring but it's not there now and all that's left is a hole in the centre console under the ashtray.

I have since bought two cubby trays, both in very good condition. The second one was an immaculate hard touch version from A2Steve I could not resist, so I have the first spare if anybody is interested.

I am trying to finish a post on my not wholly successful climate control refurbishment which might interest some members.
Maybe it will appear next week.

Getting chilly in the back garage now, I have half added central heating but it's not fully connected yet. Something that is looking more and more attractive to complete!!!

Andy
 
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Just had to share this.

SAM_3473.JPG


A 3" woodscrew in place of this broken clip

SAM_3474.JPG

I had the intention of fixing the pull handle for the service flap and took the under steering wheel trim panel off
for better access and came across this bodge. Animal.

Found the pivot arm and the pull handle not broken but the pivot arm assembly is twisted out of line with the pull handle
and keeps popping out of the pull handle. I will investigate further on Monday.

Andy
 
Glovebox Light Switch Connector Removal - Divine Intervention

Ok, not divine intervention but one of my bright ideas that actually worked!

Needed to take the glovebox out to deal with the missing hinge pin that resulted in a hanging door and
also fix the infamous broken light switch failure with one of Paul's(Deproman) 3D Printer fixes (thanks).

Followed Sarge's guide (thank you) with the last step leaving the glovebox free but dangling by the power cable for the glovebox switch/light.
Inspected the connector and it looks straightforward: small screwdriver to lift the retaining arm on top side with one hand,
same with the other hand on bottom side and a third hand to pull the connector out.

STOP, like most people I only have two hands and need to find another way, I
don't want to butcher the fittings like many people do.

I imagined the design of the special tool that no doubt exists and inspiration struck.

First more detail, the connector in question.

SAM_3489.JPG

The connector when released.

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The top retaining lug I am trying to defeat. I assume there is one underneath as well.

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My inspiration.

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The humble bulldog clip (of this design).

Simply slide the jaws of the bulldog clip under the arms of the connector, either from the side or more easily from the top and slide in.

SAM_3484.JPG

You can even have a rest at this point, the bulldog doing what it is designed to do, simply grips.

Now open the bulldog clip wider by squeezing with thumb and finger to lift the arms clear of the lugs and pull out the connector:).

I have not put the glovebox back yet has I know I will need it out the access the awkward/near impossible bits and
pieces of the climate system (8 VCDS errors)

Wrote this hoping might help someone in the future.

Andy
 
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Brake Pad Sensor Repair Kit (8Z0 927 904) - Part 1

Brake Pad Sensor Repair Kit -8Z0 927 904) - Part 1

I had a good idea what this kit entailed from old posts, but the posts were often marred by the lack of pictures (photobucket fiasco), so I thought I would put a picture up for the benefit of others in the future.

Why did I need it?, (O) permanent warning on dash of course - a common occurrence.

Investigation revealed butchery! Not only had the pad cable been cut but
the entire branch from the Y connector ripped out including half the Y connector and
the 4 core cable reduced to 2 core and 10 cm higher the missing 2 cores twisted together.
Yet the warning light is still on and the notorious discontinuity problem at exit from wheel arch must have developed.

Apologies for the picture I will replace it with better when I strip it out.

SAM_3505.JPG

No way to repair this mess and no choice but order the Audi repair kit.
(I know I could have shorted the sensor cable in the engine compartment but wanted to do a proper job.)

Used Stoke Audi, £54 delivered.

Basically the kit is the entire cabling to the wheel arch.

SAM_3525.JPG

SAM_3523.JPG

Did not expect the grommet but pleased.

I had seen a photo of an equivalent VW Golf kit and expected 30 cm of cable into the engine compartment and
some insulated solder butt connectors. Not Audi, no connectors, instead 1.7m cable from the grommet to reach the
fuse box, I assume, and replace the old wire completely to make the perfect 'as new' repair.

Need help here. Should I send these pads back???

SAM_3531.JPG

Not happy that the two cores are visible on exit from pad and not protected by outer casing of the cable.
Or should I just put some goo on it?

I will post Part 2 of this post in due course - my efforts to fit it.

Time for Match Of The Day.

Andy

Edit: I have now noticed the the kit has connector pins pre-fitted to three of the fours wire tails. The yellow core is the odd one, just a bare end, maybe it broke off and got lost in transit. The destination of these connector pins will I assume become clear as the old cable is traced and removed.
 
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Brake Pad Sensor Repair Kit -8Z0 927 904) - Part 1

I had a good idea what this kit entailed from old posts, but the posts were often marred by the lack of pictures (photobucket fiasco),
so I thought I would put a picture up for the benefit of others in the future.

Why did I need it?, (O) permanent warning on dash of course - a common occurrence.

Investigation revealed butchery! Not only had the pad cable been cut but
the entire branch from the Y connector ripped out including half the Y connector and
the 4 core cable reduced to 2 core and 10 cm higher the missing 2 cores twisted together.
Yet the warning light is still on and the notorious discontinuity problem at exit from wheel arch must have developed.

Apologies for the picture I will replace it with better when I strip it out.

View attachment 32011

No way to repair this mess and no choice but order the Audi repair kit.
(I know I could have shorted the sensor cable in the engine compartment but wanted to do a proper job.)

Used Stoke Audi, £54 delivered.

Basically the kit is the entire cabling to the wheel arch.

View attachment 32013

View attachment 32012

Did not expect the grommet but pleased.

I had seen a photo of an equivalent VW Golf kit and expected 30 cm of cable into the engine compartment and
some insulated solder butt connectors. Not Audi, no connectors, instead 1.7m cable from the grommet to reach the
fuse box, I assume, and replace the old wire completely to make the perfect 'as new' repair.

Need help here. Should I send these pads back???

View attachment 32014

Not happy that the two cores are visible on exit from pad and not protected by outer casing of the cable.
Or should I just put some goo on it?

I will post Part 2 of this post in due course - my efforts to fit it.

Time for Match Of The Day.

Andy

Very helpful Andy, thanks.

As for the pads, remember that the worse that can happen is that they touch together. The circuit is complete because they are jojned together within the pad material anyway and the wear breaks that contact when it is low enough .

As for a bit of goo, the pads will get very hot and so unless you have high temperature goo it might melt.

But if you are not happy with the quality of the pad wiring then you can send them back, but I have seen that on other pads I have bought.

Steve B
 
I am looking forward to the second part. I need to do this too.

I have used sugru for this kind of thing - broken connectors; not brake pads - and it works really well.

It is mouldable and is easy to shape, electrically insulating and retains a little of its flex when set but is crucially quite stiff. I’ve used it on laptop connectors and tool chargers when the same has happened - the wire entry to the block has split.

It is very heat resistant as it is silicone rubber - I used it on my iron holder and it has no problem with an iron on hottest setting being sat on in.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Dunking - Not Biscuits But Brake Calipers - Part 1

Dunking - Not Biscuits But Brake Calipers - Part 1

As mentioned in a post above somewhere my project car has been stood around for two years with
next to no use and of course the discs are lumps of rusty metal.

I decided to go for new and last week thought I would have a go at them and ordered a full set of Pagid discs and pads,
from Euro Car Parts, via their eBay outlet for £99.99. Good service, arrived very quickly.

Started at the front, everything went well, no problems removing discs and pads but alas I noticed I need new flexible brake pipes.

SAM_3502.JPG

Removed the flexible pipes and this meant the calipers are now free.
Two hefty lumps of very rusty metal are now sat on my bench, what a sorry sight.

SAM_3508.JPGSAM_3507.JPGSAM_3506.JPG

The Pagid discs look superb with their silver anti-corrosion finish.
Can't spoil them by putting these calipers back on it would be criminal. Need to smarten up the calipers.
Might as well do the little hub brackets that support the pipes and cables.

SAM_3513.JPG

Remembered a specialist caliper refurbishment company Spike mention recently and asked for their basic service quote.
Some members may be interested.

View attachment Estimate_27547_from_Brake_Caliper_Specialists.pdf

Not bad value really but this car is costing me enough already and I am not after a show car,
just want to get it back on the road in reasonable nick. Decide to go DIY.

Hammerite sprang to mind but reading around its seems to have lost it reputation now its gone H&S,
Looked further afield and found this interesting company.

http://www.rust.co.uk/

Some members may know of them but I was impressed. I opted for their rust remover product somewhere near £17.
Be warned it costs £30 by the time VAT and an expensive £9 postage is included - a bit dear to send a small 1 litre bottle.

SAM_3533.JPGSAM_3534.JPG

This product sounds too good to be true. Non harmful and nearly all I have to do is leave it dunked for a week, (the post title at last!). My pace of job! You can even store it for the next job - read the website.

Let's give it a go and document my experience for others, one way or the other.

The 1 litre bottle is a concentrate, needs diluting 4:1 with deionized water(???).
It will take me an hour to pick up deionized water so use tap water; maybe blown the job already.

Here we go, dunk.


....continued in next post....

Andy
 
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Dunking - Not Biscuits But Brake Calipers - Part 2

Dunking - Not Biscuits But Brake Calipers - Part 2

Here we go dunk

SAM_3516.JPG

Bit disappointed, absolutely nothing happens, expected bubbles like lime scale removers.


Day 1

24 hours later I am quite impressed, a couple of faces are back to metal but the really heavy rust
looks the same, water is a little murky.

SAM_3517.JPGSAM_3519.JPG


The instructions say a little daily surface agitation helps.
Wire brush does not seem to do much and have more joy with an old toothbrush.
Next photo show this with the bracket on the left brushed and the right yet to be done.

SAM_3521.JPG

Notice the instructions say product works best at 15-25 degrees C and
with the garage going down to 12 C at night I move my dunking bowl to the front garage,
which is at house temperature. I am toying with late at night sneaking it into the air cupboard,
but decide ramifications might be too great!!

Day 2

No activity - I am out for most of the day.

Day 3

Bowl is going quite murky.

SAM_3532.JPG

A bit disappointed, but some progress is being made.
Bare metal is showing more but the heavily rusted areas look the same.

SAM_3536.JPGSAM_3538.JPGSAM_3539.JPG

Sorry, spent so much time fighting the attachments I will continue this tomorrow

.... to be continued....

Andy
 
The 1 litre bottle is a concentrate, needs diluting 4:1 with deionized water(???).
It will take me an hour to pick up deionized water so use tap water; maybe blown the job already

Most large supermarkets sell deionised water these days - Tesco and Asda definitely do.
 
As far as I understand the chemistry most rust converters use a chemical reaction to transfer the rust into another iron oxide which is very stable and resistant to reoxidation. I seem to recall that it’s phosphoric acid which is most commonly used or something similarly weakly acidic- it’s been a while. The rust remains but is now the new salt - I think iron III phosphate is Black if the material was loose before it is still loose so you do want to scrub off the top layer and then treat if you want a nice smooth hard top layer. Ions in the water will interfere with the chemistry a little but unless your water is very alkali, acid or heavily mineralised I shouldn’t have thought it would be more than a marginal effect.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
I've used the Deox-C - works pretty well, particularly if you heat the water up first.

Simon.
 
Dunking - Not Biscuits But Brake Calipers - Part 3

Day 4

Progress has slowed, the phrase 'diminishing returns' springs to mind.
It is pleasing the heavy rust is beginning to move. I can see several large flakes, the size of confetti,
starting to lift, a prod with my large slotted screwdriver and they are off.:)

A quick scrub with my old toothbrush on the FS III stamping and the rust embedded in the lettering floats out and
the lettering is pristine.:)

SAM_3541.JPG

Incremental progress elsewhere.

SAM_3543.JPGSAM_3544.JPGSAM_3545.JPGSAM_3546.JPG

I am beginning to tire of this daily surface agitation. It takes me about half an hour to give all the nooks and
crannies a proper scrub and by the end of the week that will be three and half hours labour!
Maybe not the soft option I envisaged.

....continued ....

Andy
 
Dunking - Not Biscuits But Brake Calipers - Part 4

Dunking - Not Biscuits But Brake Calipers - Part 4

The heavy rust is definitely becoming dimpled and I have a lot of joy cutting and
scraping with an old throwaway craft knife but it's all taking time. Still a lot of rust.

SAM_3547.JPGSAM_3548.JPGSAM_3551.JPG

A part number on one of the brackets surfaced today....

SAM_3549.JPG

... & Mr. Audi put in an appearance.

SAM_3552.JPG

(sorry the pic is out of focus I will replace it tomorrow)

On the RustBusters's website the product blurb does mention a month in half a jest.
Maybe a grain of truth here and not the product to use if the car has to be back on
the road to get to work on Monday morning. In fairness they do say this is not a quick result product
but they do infer a week.

This brings me to the close of play today.

Next post of this thrilling anthology probably be at the weekend:rolleyes:

Andy
 
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I Love My Cat, Really

The guilty party

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Had the bonnet sprayed at the local paint shop, Ouch! £180. I know it's dear but this part of the world is expensive - my middle range lager at the local pub at the bottom of my lane is £4.95 a pint! Next higher quote was £225+VAT! (The bonnet not the beer)

Collected it a few weeks ago and no point in putting it on the car with work in progress. Decided to put it out of the way in the front garage balanced high up on some storage boxes. The cat has shown no interest in this gleaming chunk of metal until last night when curiosity got the better of her. A little leap and all hell lets loose, bonnet equilibrium broken, tilts forward, cat slides off and bonnet does a graceful half summersault onto the concrete floor 5' below.

SAM_3585.JPG

Made hell of a noise and scared the cat half to death.

Hoping the paint man will take pity on me

Andy
 
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The guilty party




Had the bonnet sprayed at the local paint shop, Ouch! £180. I know it's dear but this part of the world is expensive - my middle range lager at the local pub at the bottom of my lane is £4.95 a pint! Next higher quote was £225+VAT!

Collected it a few weeks ago and no point in putting it on the car with work in progress. Decided to put it out of the way in the front garage balanced high up on some storage boxes.
The cat has shown no interest in this gleaming chunk of metal until last night when curiosity got the better of her. A little leap and all hell lets loose, bonnet equilibrium broken, tilts forward, cat slides off and bonnet does a graceful half summersault onto the concrete floor 5' below.



Made hell of a noise and scared the cat half to death.

Hoping the paint man will take pity on me.

Andy

I may be wrong here, but the way that has lifted at the edges of the damage is a bit worrying?

If the paint had been done properly surely it would not peel like that at the edges.

Do we have any car painters on here that can be more specific about that, it just looks like it was not adhering to the bonnet to my untrained eyes?

Steve B
 
Hi Steve,

Thanks for the comment but I am not too worried. I used to drive past the paint shop for decades on my way to work everyday, so they have been around a long time and the hands on owner tells me he has been in the trade 40 years. My experience is paint does not really dry/harden for ages, like a year. I am hoping as the damage is localised to one small corner/wing it can be treated/sprayed locally and blend in with new paint elsewhere.

Sod's law applied again in that a few days after I dropped the bonnet off at the paint shop, A2Steve advertised a bonnet in the same silver, silver sea metallic, in reasonable nick for £25, arghh!

The guilty party just carried in a mouse, a regular event, and I have spent the last few minutes catching it - they don't half move but I am getting quite good at it. Thankfully it was in the living room and not under the kitchen cupboards which is a pain.

Andy
 
A few posts recently concerned soft touch paint, specifically removing it, has prompted me to share some details of my climate refurbishment of last summer (2017). Enjoy the pictures.


The climate unit on my project car was in a poor state; typical soft touch button wear and worse a least one prominent scratch. Decided to swap the buttons for hard touch and strip off the soft touch paint from the button housing, repair and repaint. The climate did not look that bad but when you begin to look closely!!

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(Incidentally if you have never seen the back of the button housing you will find for some reason Audi decided to put a street map of Milton Keynes on it.:)

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)

I still have half a gallon of cellulose thinners left over from the 1990's and thought I would give that a try to strip off the soft touch paint. Prudently I thought it best to experiment on the soft touch paint of a broken cubby. I am glad I did, NEVER try this!!! It was scary, in 10 seconds every bit of soft touch paint had been stripped off and in the next 10 seconds the thinners started to dissolve the cubby front surround!!! Need something a little weaker.

A few YouTube videos advocate rubbing alcohol so thought I would I give it a try. Bought half a litre off eBay for £3.50.

SAM_3480.JPG


It does work, moisten a cloth and rub and the cloth starts to turn black with paint removed, the only problem is progress was slow and it became evident it would take ages to strip off all the soft touch paint. Decided to dunk in a plant tray.

SAM_3403.JPG


Ignore the large white circular kitchen unit connectors they were just to give the button housing some "feet" and the lump of metal acted as a balance.

Gave it a ten minute dunk and removed it.

SAM_3404.JPG


A gentle scrub with an old tooth brush and I had this.

SAM_3407.JPG


Another 10 minute dunk, scrub and virtually all the soft touch paint was gone. One or two awkward bits that needed individual attention to remove and the stripping is finished.

Some soft touch paint debris.

SAM_3411.JPG


Left to dry and we have

SAM_3415.JPG


You can see the big scratch I needed to fill, only partly succeeded but that is another story.

Just used a standard matt/satin black spray can but that's another story to arrive at.

SAM_3444.JPG

Pop the hard touch buttons back in and nearly have the finished climate.

SAM_3447.JPG


The demist button is letting the side down here and has subsequently been replaced, but that's another story. I keep saying that but this post really could be fives times longer but trying to keep it short.

I would give the refurb 8 out of 10, not perfect, will redo it at some point.

Andy
 
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