Power Steering gone again

humps

humps

A2OC Donor
Skipton01 said:
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If this was an Audi bill, I'd be looking at around £1200 I suspect!
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That is if they could find the fault in the first place! Well done Mike, very good job and informative as ever. I shall check my looms when I get the time. Fingers crossed, my rather older (2001) A2 is fine.

For a moment, I thought you left the 2 screws inside the centre console, because I could take them out but not put 'em back in, even with my smaller hands!


Murdo, as for fire ruined A2. Remember Sarge's restored A2? It was a fire from the fuse box that melted 1/2 the dash and surrounding trims. He suspects it was one of the large fuse and he showed me, out of the several large fuses there, one of them is particularly hotter.
 
dan_b

dan_b

A2OC Donor
Skipton01 said:
Whip the bonnet off and then get an inspection lamp to the nearside suspension strut mount, as shown in the photo earlier in the thread.

You'll see a large corrugated rubber grommet coming through the bulkhead with a massive loom in it. This loom splits into 2 main parts: 1 goes around the top of the engine bay, under the rubber seal to the front of the engine, the other goes down the side of the strut mount and along the inside of the wheel arch.

With the ignition off, run your fingers along the back of this latter loom and feel for any chafing or any residue, which would be white powder resulting from aluminium corrosion.

If there is any, then it's time to get repairs going before its too late, otherwise, feel for any lumps or weld blobs and protect the loom accordingly.

Cheers,

Mike
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Excellent thanks Mike - I suggest a new post with this procedure and photos goes up as a Sticky with advice for all forum members to do the check at some point?
 
Skipton01

Skipton01

Well-Known Member
Sure we can arrange that Dan.

Trouble is, this is just one loom in one place - there are many, many places where a short could lead to a fire. However, the corrugated rubber grommets that go through the bulkhead should be checked on both sides - the nearside one houses 2 really thick wires (cables actually - they are 6mm square and carry the power to the power steering pump). Once they enter the cabin, they both go vertically down to enter the footwell, so you have a wire, carrying up to 80 amps, doing nearly a 180 degree bend over a sharp metal edge, with only a rubber grommet and its own insulating sleeve for protection!

The hole through the bulkhead really needs to be lined to make it a less sharp edge, maybe with a rounded rigig plastic liner, then the grommet. I may be being paranoid, but it's not without cause - I have suffered a small fire in this region already!

Cheers,

Mike
 
murdo

murdo

Admin Team
humps said:
Murdo, as for fire ruined A2. Remember Sarge's restored A2? It was a fire from the fuse box that melted 1/2 the dash and surrounding trims. He suspects it was one of the large fuse and he showed me, out of the several large fuses there, one of them is particularly hotter.
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Yes, youre quite right. Think I wll make some enquiries about Fire damage to A2's and will post on here if I get any info. I'd be devestated if anything happened to Ada! As to the checks, I will take my chances till April and add this to Skips job list!
 
Sarge

Sarge

Dick Chown Award 2015
Fire damaged A2's

humps said:
Remember Sarge's restored A2? It was a fire from the fuse box that melted 1/2 the dash and surrounding trims. He suspects it was one of the large fuse and he showed me, out of the several large fuses there, one of them is particularly hotter.
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Humps if you recall it was the one of the relays above the fuse box. It gets HOT! ;)

During the course of my search for parts, I was surprised to find SEVERAL FIRE damaged A2's, four were at spares parts company's, three on eBay as salvage.

I contacted Audi UK and told them that there seems to be an electrical fire issue and maybe they should launch an investigation into this, which may lead to a recall (yep that word of death for a manufacturer RECALL! ...lol ) on these cars but as you can predict the answer, they weren't interested and denied that there were any other A2 cars with this problem despite me willing to give them the details of the other damaged vehicles.


Anyway heres a few pics of 2 of them.



Sarge
 
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C

cjscos

Member
Skipton01 said:
Below is a photo of the problem area:



The red arrow points to where the blob of weld is and you can see the blackening on the plate below, where the shorting and melting/fire has been. The yellow arrow points to the loom securing lug and above it, you can see the remains of an earth wire, together with the clipped wires that were melted together.

The coolant header tank has been removed in this photo for ease of access and also to show the area better in the photo.

This is what the inside of Tank looks like at the moment:



I've successfully stripped back the affected wiring to the inside of the car (you can just see the loom popping out near the far A pillar trim in the above photo) and soldered and insulated new wiring in place and routed it back to the engine bay.

Tomorrow, the job continues......

Cheers,

Mike
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you must of been a surgeon in your past life!
 
C

cjscos

Member
just checked mine and it WAS rubbing on the body but luckly has done no damage. put some rubber on both looms just to be sure. good advice and well done for pointing it out.
 
tbm1397

tbm1397

Member
Will have a look at this tomorrow,can you see this part of the loom from the engine bay, or from inside the wheel arch?:confused:
 
Skipton01

Skipton01

Well-Known Member
It's visible from the engine bay, up under the nearside lower corner of the windscreen.

Cheers,

Mike
 
Skipton01

Skipton01

Well-Known Member
You can quite clearly see that the loom has been moved and cable tied in with the other, larger one that runs around the edge.

All that remains is to find out who moved it and why - is there a link growing here that this loom is a liability?

Cheers,

Mike
 
Skipton01

Skipton01

Well-Known Member
No, I'm not saying that - it could (I stress could) be the case, but equally, the loom may have been re-routed by someone else (an owner or independant workshop) for some other reason.

Cheers,

Mike
 
murdo

murdo

Admin Team
richard- said:
So you are saying audi moving it, because they know it could cause a fire
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Noodles still pops onto the forum so maybe he will shed some light on the loom being moved. When I was thinking of buying your car from him, I think the history of the car included an extended time off the road when then first owner passed away. Theres also been a bit of modding work as you know better than anyone - so its probably a good thing that its shifted. Another route for complete peace of mind is to ring Audi UK and find out what waranty works been done, think I did this myself but cant recall the outcome :D
 
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STEP

Member
Hi Mike!

I have to say very good and hard work!
Very difficult to understand where really is the problem!

Do you think that my problem that I exposed in Stiff Steering could be the same that you had?

Thank you
 
Skipton01

Skipton01

Well-Known Member
STEP said:
Hi Mike!

I have to say very good and hard work!
Very difficult to understand where really is the problem!

Do you think that my problem that I exposed in Stiff Steering could be the same that you had?

Thank you
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It is a possibility - do you ever have problems with the brake pad wear warning light or the outside temperature display? If yes, you probably have a bad earth in the loom.

If your problem is intermittent, it could point to a rubbing issue - the only way to check is to look at the wiring loom in detail.

Cheers,

Mike
 
R

robeeeeee

Member
Just thought I'd mention I checked my loom tonight and it looks very we secured and has not rubbed on the bodywork at all (see attached photo). Also other looms, especially the large ones which are easily visible on either side of the top of the suspension just around the edge of the bonnet seal. They pass over a sharp metal edge and have a lot of extra insulation at this point (which has started to rub but only slightly).
I wonder if the quality of insulation is variable from car to car?
Hope this helps,
Robbie
 
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