Bluey

[Taipan]

When I bought the car, one of the side mirrors was secured by electric tape. The seller didn’t know what was wrong with it but it was secure and worked, so it didn’t overly bother me. Fast forward to 2 weeks ago and I needed to park the car close up against a wall. I nipped round to the nearside to push the passenger side mirror in and…well you can guess what happened. On the one hand I had two broken side mirrors, but on the other hand I had solved the mystery of how the drivers side got broken!

Having just replaced the global lock/unlock switch the doorcard was already off the door, so it wasn’t very much more work to remove the side mirrors. The first inkling that something wasn’t right was when I removed the inner interior foam to find an angry looking torx bolt



Progressing further and removing the side mirror itself revealed an extremely sketchy looking base.



When placing the mirror aside I noticed it rattled. Further shakeing emitted a shower of rust particles, I was surprised there was anything left of the inner workings at all!



The white deposit is oxidised aluminium and it was stuck absolutely fast to the rubber so that the only way to remove it was copious soaking of APC and a carefully wielded stanley blade. Part way through cleaning here.



With both side mirrors removed and the bases thoroughly cleaned we were ready for the replacement parts. Old vs new comparison shows what a state the original mirrors were in.





Fitting was a simple reversal of removal with a careful eye to ensure that everything was seated, lubricated and tightened correctly. A vast improvement to my eyes

 

[Darren C]

Another excellent job and write up; great to see such attention to detail and lavished attention. You are certainly doing a thorough and grand job of restoring/transforming your A2.

Did you replace the mirrors with new units? In the photo they look pristine.

 

[A2Steve]

Did you replace the mirrors with new units? In the photo they look pristine.

I hope Jon won't mind me saying but no they are used but in good condition and we're supplied by me.

 

[Taipan]

Another excellent job and write up; great to see such attention to detail and lavished attention. You are certainly doing a thorough and grand job of restoring/transforming your A2.

Many thanks, Darren. I'm actually really enjoying the process. And to think that without the seller's, and now my, input the car almost certainly would have been scrapped

Did you replace the mirrors with new units? In the photo they look pristine.

As Steve alluded to they are used parts, but are in exceptional condition. The car has now experienced the two ends of the side mirror extreme!!

I hope Jon won't mind me saying but no they are used but in good condition and we're supplied by me.

No problem at all, Steve. Always initially prefer to be a bit mysterious as some prefer it that way on forums! Thanks again for all your help and part searching - may be easier to just buy the whole car off you though

 

[jp.oog]

Looking good. Love the photos. Excellent attention to detail.

James

 

[Taipan]

Looking good. Love the photos. Excellent attention to detail.

James

Thanks James, I try!

 

[Taipan]

Bit of a halt to proceedings whilst a new clutch is fitted. On Monday, the clutch spectacularly expired and a graceful coast to a halt in one of the sidings off the A1 ensued. I can confirm that the A2 can coast for quite a considerable distance on the flat! Luckily we were only a few miles from home so one of the local farmers recovered us to his mechanic.

After identifying the broken up clutch and replacing with a LUK item, the mechanic asked whether there had been any symptoms leading up to expiration (there hadn't) and, thus informed, commented regarding the quality of the Audi (?) item that had performed faultlessly right up until, well; it didn't! Whilst the car was in I took the opportunity to get an aircon regas, which should help ensure full functionality of the system once I've replaced the G263 sensor.

Currently part hoarding for the mechanical preparation for an upcoming Euro trip:
- Full fluids and filter service including fuel filter and gearbox oil and the replacement of all relevant seals, gaskets and washers.
- Spark plugs
- Front discs, pads and shields
- G263 sensor
- Oil separator and swiss cheese of a breather pipe


- Rear dampers, dust boots and all relating nuts and bolts
- Throttle body clean, gasket replacement and calibration (oil breather pipe dumping back into the inlet hasn't helped proceedings - catch can anyone?)
- Starter motor disassembly and regrease

Once that is all done it will finally be time to rent a steam cleaner and go to town on the rancid interior. I cannot wait not to stick to things on the inside of the car!

 

[Taipan]

The project has ticked over of late, as I knew that the next phase required a stockpiling of parts and information. Having navigated the initial period of ownership I now know the car much better and was able to identify everything that needs rectification and prioritise appropriately.

This weekend I was able to complete nearly all of the important jobs including:

- Front discs and pads
- Oil separator pipe and seals
- Rear dampers
- Full service (oil & filter, plugs, air filter, fuel filter
- Reset EML
- Engine undertray

I'll report back on the trial and tribulations once I've had a chance to upload the photos!

 

[Taipan]

Full service (oil & filter, spark plugs, air filter, fuel filter)

I decided to start with the routine job first.



Whilst the seller had serviced the vehicle prior to sale I had no idea what exactly was done and the quality of parts that had been used. I was surprised at the state of the pollen filter (see previous post), so decided to err on the side of caution and bring the full service forward from October. All pretty routine:

• The oil was black and more viscous than ideal, so I’m glad I changed it – I will change the oil every 6 months from now on, as I do with all my cars. Replaced the sump plug.

• On initial inspection the oil filter looked to be in a pretty contorted place to reach; that was until I noticed the handy hex on the end. Note to self; always check the replacement part rather than sticking your head in the engine bay!

• The air filter was in a pretty sorry state with a lot of road debris collected in the base. Job was made much easier as the car came without an engine undertray! Cleaned both screws with WD40 and copper greased the thread and head for corrosion resistance.
  

• The fuel filter was a recurring theme throughout the weekend. The screw was all but corroded into the housing and required a liberal soaking of WD40 before even attempting to undo. Once the filter was freed, the downstream clamp came off easily enough but the upstream clamp held on no matter how hard, or what angle the release was pushed. Whilst the exterior of the filter didn’t look too bad I really wanted to change it for peace of mind. To be continued…

• Spark plugs, particularly cylinder 1, were quite sooty and well worth the change. Masking tape on the leads with cylinder number written on was a bit belt and braces but hindsight is a wonderful teacher! I traced the EML code I’ve had from day one of ownership to a large slash in the oil separator pipework (see separate post) and the state of the spark plugs tallied up to the ECU having to adjust fuelling to compensate for an AFR way out of tolerances. Whilst they were accessible I cleaned up the coils, leads and plastic carrier.
  

Whilst it’s somewhat cliché, the car drives noticeably better after the service. The engine feels like it is moving much more freely and with the AFR now within tolerance it revs out strongly, revealing a peppy top end. It’s actually really quite a fun little engine to rev.

Fingers crossed no more EML, though time will tell as the ECU takes a good few miles to get to a position where it can’t calibrate further and so throws the code.

 

[Taipan]

Front discs and pads

The dashboard threw up the brake pad warning message about a month ago and thankfully from initial inspections it didn’t seem to be a faulty wire or harness problem. Closer inspection of the disc and pads – particularly the inner sides – revealed a front brake setup well overdue a change.

This is the first time I’ve changed the brakes on an A2 and so took my time to really understand everything before starting. As is often the way, the side I familiarised myself with took about three times as long as the other!

Wheel off, I encountered my first potential show stopper. Removing the caliper guide pins rubber protective caps revealed 2x 7mm allen heads. The allen socket set I have goes 3,4,5,6,8,10,11,12; balls.

The friendly neighbourhood farmer supplied a panatone tin of roughly 100 different sized allen keys but – you guessed it – no 7mm. After much scratching of the head and resigning myself to packing everything away to do a new tool run, I suddenly realised that a torx head is basically a bi-hex to an allen keys hex. So – and look away now purists – I grabbed the correct sized torx key and before you know it the guide pins were out.

With the caliper released and swung out of the way I could remove and access the pads; not a pretty sight.



A previous custodian had luckily copper greased the screw thread of the brake disc retaining bolt and, though tight, the disc released itself without a grumble. Whilst not in terrible condition they were substantially thinner than the new discs and definitely warranted a change.



My intention was to change the brake shields. However on closer inspection two things became apparent; firstly the brake shields were in a more serviceable condition than I thought they were and secondly the nuts and bolts were not coming out without being drilled! Seeing as I had stupidly not ordered replacement fasteners from Audi, this will have to be a job undertaken when I refurbish the calipers.

With things now ready for reassembly with new items, I encountered my second potential showstopper. Having adopted the hammer and wood approach to wind the piston back, it just wouldn’t budge. Having no alternative, another SOS was sent to the farmer friend who proffered a number of g-clamps in a selection of sizes. One of these was such a good fit it could have been custom-made for the job. It’s true what they say about having the right tool for the job!

Reassembly was quite straightforward with no hitches, copper grease was used on all the pad/caliper contact points and a thin layer of silicone lubricant was used on the guide pins.

The only thing to add is that I’m glad I remembered to put rags around the neck of the brake reservoir as when I wound back the driving side caliper piston a torrent of brake fluid slopped out – note to reader, don’t pick up a brake fluid soaked rag with a hand with a cut on…..

I am bedding the discs in over the next 500 miles or so but I can already feel that the car has much more stopping bite even just with gentle brake application. The pedal also feels much firmer and the braking action starts much sooner in the pedal travel. All round good result.

Picture before everything was located, lubricated and tightened.

 

[Taipan]

Oil separator pipe and seals

During a previous session scrabbling about under the engine, I identified a large slash in the lower oil separator pipework just below the heating element joint, as you can see in the picture.


With a relating wear mark directly next to it in the engine bay, I could see that the slash had been started by friction and finished by pressure. My theory is that the hose you can see below the oil separator hose should be above, so that the oil separator hose can fit into the retaining clip in the centre left of the photo. Clearly it had been incorrectly rerouted at some point, so that the retaining clip designed to keep it in isolation then couldn’t be used.

The oil separator itself was leaking and covering everything around it with oil, suggesting the seals need replacing or the unit itself was cracked. Added to this the lower hose was ballooning and clearly no longer fit for purpose.



Removing the oil separator was as straightforward as loosening 3 bolts. Separating the lower hose from the separator was a pig however. Thankfully, access is really good but the hose just wouldn’t release its grip from the oil separator. After 20 mins of thankless effort it finally dawned on me that I was replacing the hose and therefore it could be cut off. 10 seconds later the separator was out but I wasn’t getting the last 20 minutes of life back!

A quick inspection of the unit revealed it was air tight but absolutely filthy. The contents of the oil separator were foul, stank and seemingly permanently marked anything it touched. Liberal amounts of fairy liquid and degreaser got things much shinier and cleaner, but the sheer amount of gunk that came out suggests it was almost completely blocked. If there is one part that I advise all of you to remove and clean, it is this.



Once clean and dry I changed out all three seals and refitted.






Luckily I had the forethought to fit the hose to the separator with the unit off the vehicle and it was relatively painless. Fitting the top of the hose to the heating element connector was a pain and took a ridiculously long time due to the contortion required to get two hands on it and the sympathy needed to not break the heating element plug off the connector. Got there in the end.

As I was under the car anyhow, I shuffled up and took a fresh look at the fuel filter. Time had not solved the problem and no matter how I jostled and cajoled the upstream end it did not budge. Put it aside again and continued on.

 

[Taipan]

Rear dampers

Being kind, I can only describe the ride at the rear of the car as being under damped; it bounced around seemingly with no connection to the front. The seller replaced both rear springs prior to sale and my suspicions were that the dampers were shot, meaning the springs were doing far too much of the work.

On inspection, both dampers were in a sorry state and when pushing the boot of the car down by hand they offered almost no resistance at all. Not good.

Once the car was jacked up and supported safely, I removed the rear wheel and the wheel arch liner. Judging by the harsh life the car has had up until now, it was pleasing to see every single torx screw and plastic retaining clip in situ and moving freely.

Whilst the passenger side wheel arch was just a bit dusty, the driver’s side had a beach worth of sand and dust and debris rammed up behind the liner. A once over with a brush saw a quite impressive pile of dirt on the drive.

I had pre-soaked the lower damper mounting nut and bolt in WD40 overnight, so once the rust and corrosion had been scraped off the nut it was loosened with little fuss. Once the strut housing bolts nuts had been undone the damper could be removed and inspected.

As you can see, the damper was very corroded, the plastic strut guard was adrift having been cut at some point and the bump stop has two ‘bumps’ missing. With the other damper in a similar state, you can quickly see why the car’s ride was so bouncy. Well past their useful life.



On preparing the damper for refitting the final potential show stopper appeared. I wasn’t planning on reusing the top nut, but was planning on reusing both strut housings as they were in good condition. When trying to loosen the top nut the strut of course span freely; balls. I needed a ring spanner so I could grip the strut notch and simultaneously spin the top nut.

Not wanting to over burden the (busy) farmer with yet another tool request I packed everything away and drove down to the not particularly local Halfords – via the more local BandQ and Screwfix – and picked up a 16mm ring spanner. Having wasted 45 minutes, at least the top nuts were then easily loosened and the strut housing salvaged.

Fitting the strut housing to the new dampers I used the Sachs supplied top nut rather than the Audi nuts I had bought, primarily because the Sachs nuts were nyloc and Audi’s weren’t. To my horror I noted that the Sachs offering was a 17mm nut and not the Audi 16mm. Double balls, my nice shiny new ring spanner was useless.

Not wanting to pack everything away again and waste yet more time, after a few failed work arounds I realised that I could use the ratchet end of a 17mm ratchet wrench to provide the required purchase and then flip it round to use the wrench end once the nut had travelled below the ratchet’s reach. All a bit Macgyver but needs must!

Refitting the damper was the reverse of removal and the other side was a repeat of the process. I took the opportunity to replace both upper spring mounts and, with the lower spring mounts on back order, I will replace these once they arrive.

With the front (replaced by the seller prior to sale) and rear suspension now completely new, safe to say the car rides impeccably. It really does smother road imperfections and that’s even with the heavy 17” B5 RS4 replicas. It is also much more composed and predictable when cornering, though feels nervous when really committing to left hand bends. However, I think this is an alignment issue as I noticed the left rear tyre is wearing much more quickly (and unevenly side to side) than the right rear.

With a couple of hours away from the fuel filter, I returned full of fresh enthusiasm; nope, still not budging. The fingers I was using to push in the release tab had gone numb by now.

 

[Taipan]

Engine undertray

Not really a job as such but it’s always bugged me that the car didn’t have an engine undertray. It further bugged me that because of this the lower front bumper was attached with cable ties.

Having sourced a replacement engine undertray and fixings (thanks, Steve) I had to spend a bit of time working out what fixing went where and offered up the part a few times through the process.

I’m not sure how it is meant to fasten at the rear but there are plenty of locating holes that match up with the holes on the undertray, but no obvious captive nuts for bolts to go into. The front and sides of the undertray are secured, so I just added a couple of precautionary cable ties to the rear whilst I investigate a more palatable and permanent solution.

The undertray came from a 1.6 FSI and is all but identical except where the exhaust runs so whilst there is no rubbing the plastic doesn’t cut away in quite the right place. A small price to pay in my opinion.

With the underside of the car now looking cleaner, I was still being mocked by the dangling fuel filter I could see out of the corner of my eye. I decided I would give it one last go and if I failed I would just have to settle with running with the existing filter.

On this occasion I pushed the tab in before grabbing the filter housing. Pulling with as little sympathy and as much strength for what seemed like an eternity, the hose finally released its grasp and the simplest and most straight forward job was FINALLY completed.



I can only theorise that the release mechanism was corroded and not fully relinquishing its hold on the inlet. On refitting the clasp it clicked home and stuck fast, so thankfully did not appear to be damaged in the removal process. I don’t plan on changing the fuel filter for the next 25k or so, which for us is about 3 years. I will remember the struggle though!!

 

[Taipan]

Windscreen woes

When driving about a month ago I felt a drip on my right knee. Tracing the pathway of the drip up to the relevant point of the dashboard revealed no water or dampness. It wasn’t raining outside and with no obvious signs of water I couldn’t fathom how my knee was wet!

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago and I was again driving though this time after a night of rainfall. On reaching a T-junction, I looked left and right as normal and that’s when the a-pillars caught my attention. The passenger side a pillar was a normal Twist colour, but the drivers side was much darker. Reaching up and touching it I realised that it was soaked through.

Once home, I had a chance to investigate further and discovered that the inner seal at the top right of the drivers side had been curled under and pinched by the screen rather than sitting flat and hence was not water tight.

The windscreen had been replaced by the previous owner and contacting him (thanks, Matt) he let me know that Autoglass did the job. Phoning Autoglass they couldn’t find the car plate on the system and when I revealed my predicament they stated that the windscreen wouldn’t be covered by their warranty anyhow, as the warranty only applied to the previous owner. Whilst I really wanted to call bulls*t on that one, it was all pretty academic anyhow, considering there was no way I could prove that Autoglass had done the shoddy job in the first place.

Contacting a local, trusted windscreen company they agreed to come and have a look. The diagnosis was worse than I thought.

Whilst I was correct in my assumption that the seal had been pinched and rendered ineffective, it turned out that whilst the whole right hand side of the windscreen had had adhesive applied to it, it wasn’t actually bonded to anything. In other words the drivers side of the screen was completely free to move about and the only thing keeping it together was the inner seal, friction and pure good luck. You couldn’t make it up! God only knows what would have happened in a crash, as it’s a bonded screen that contributes to the car’s strength and rigidity.

Anyhow, screen removed without incident – in the worrying words of the friendly windscreen chap “it was really easy to remove” - and correctly refitted and secured; no more watery death trap!

 

[Taipan]

Having glanced back through the thread, I realised that I’ve never posted a picture of the whole car before! So here it is in all its ratty glory.

 

[A2Steve]

Having glanced back through the thread, I realised that I’ve never posted a picture of the whole car before! So here it is in all its ratty glory.

View attachment 25378

Looks OK from here, or is it a 3 metre car? I.e looks great from 3 metres away lol

 

[Taipan]

Exterior temperature sensor

Another job or two completed over the weekend.

The exterior temperature dash readout seemed to be in the ball park each time it showed on start-up but never seemed to fluctuate, so I decided it was worth a change.

I released the fog light covers and unclipped the lower grill to reveal a dusty looking exterior temp sensor and a rather beat up air con condenser.



Unclipped the current exterior temp sensor and a comparison between old and new.



Fitted new sensor and replaced trim and happy to now have a temperature that now fluctuates regularly. 2 minutes well spent.

 

[Taipan]

Next thing to tackle was the glare in the rear. With a young daughter, any sort of direct sunlight can be the difference between war and peace!

Looked into tinting but didn’t like the cost, look and semi-permanent nature. Sun blinds it is then. The Vanstyle offerings were the only ones in the running really as the reviews are extremely good.

Straight out of the box they looked like a quality and, more importantly, sturdy item.



Before fitting I took a quick picture for before/after comparison purposes



Successfully navigating the Ikea-esk ‘no words, just pictures’ fitting instructions a few minutes of fiddling resulted in this. As you can see, a noticeable darkening.



This is what they look like from the interior. It is much darker and appreciably cooler with them fitted.



The pack comes with rear blinds but I didn’t bother to fit them as a) the A2 already has a tinted rear screen and b) the junction between the two rear blinds leaves a thickish band that is annoying in the rear view mirror.

Test drove them yesterday on a lengthy-ish drive into town and not a peep despite being an extremely sunny day.

 

[Taipan]

Last job of the weekend was a swap of the G263 sensor. I was dreading this slightly as there are lots of horror stories out there. It turned out to be one of the easiest jobs I’ve done!

Two torx screws undone, one connector unclipped, bonnet release mechanism freed and the footwell cover was off



Followed by loosening one plastic torx screw to release the footwell air director



Followed by unclipping the brake and clutch switches



This left enough room for a hand to squeeze between the clutch bracket to allow finger and thumb access to the sensor through the two very handily placed holes in the aluminium cell.

Using the tabs of the connector, I carefully eased the sensor out and then forcing my other arm up behind the pedal box I was able to unclip sensor from connector.

Refit was reverse of removal with a few careful stabs before the locating hole for the sensor was found.

15 minutes and we were done.

 

[Taipan]

Looks OK from here, or is it a 3 metre car? I.e looks great from 3 metres away lol

Considering the lack of love it's received in the past, it's not actually too bad. When you get closer though there are defects. It needs a bloody good DA session, ideally with paint on the bonnet, bumper and wings. Wheels need a full refurb (reluctant as they're reps and heavy) and there are a couple of car park dings to remove.

Appearance is very much taking a back seat whilst I get the mechanicals sorted though!