1991 Audi Coupe Quattro rebuild

In reply to preach :

I have a guy in Maine asking about it now.  It's just hard pricing it unfinished, because the parts are worth more than the car itself!  Especially with all the rare and NOS stuff I have for it...

Really nice pickup, love seeing these older Audis. In the middle of a build with my UrS4 currently - they are definitely special cars. Keep it up!

In reply to digital :

My 80q has been an absolute hoot to drive for the past couple years.  I'm ready to make it faster now.  That's one reason I'm going to sell the CQ.

Spent most of today putting most of the engine together.  Head got torqued down, that was... Fun...  Then finding all the bolts to put everything else on was most of the time spent.  Oh well, it's almost ready to take off the stand, and get a trans bolted to it.  I don't want to set the timing until the trans is attached.  Last thing I want to do it set the timing wrong at this point.

I'm trying to make a decision.  The plan as of now, is to sell this when it's road worthy again.  The transmission is currently an unknown.  I have a good sedan transmission which has a known  better 5th gear.

The decision I need to make is, should I swap the trans when I put the engine in, or, leave the CQ trans in, and offer the next owner the sedan trans with the car?

Obviously I'm looking at a little more work on my part to swap the trans, but would it make it better in the end?

I'd swap it in, especially since you're including it no matter what. 

In reply to docwyte :

I'm still on the fence about it.  Either way, I have to get the one mount bolt free, it siezed in the mount itself, and take the CV's off to reboot them.  It would only be another 8 bolts to take the whole trans out.

In reply to de80q :

It's never going to be easier to do it than now and it'll make the car more appealing for a buyer. 

You are definitely not wrong there.  The problem is some of the "purists" will get upset about the change.  Not that it really matters to me though.

Well here is the sedan trans all cleaned up.

Now I need to get my jack stands back so I can get the CQ one out...

In reply to de80q :

Screw the purists.  They're not gonna buy this car anyways, they'll just complain about the setup.

Your not wrong!  It's not a clean enough car for the purists anyway.

I got the old trans out, and have been trying to remove the hydro boost servo from the car.  I have everything I can see unbolted, and the pin to the peddle is out.  All it does is kind of bounce back and forth!  Really aggravating!  After I swap in the vacuum booster I have, I'm ready to put the engine and trans back in!

I figured it out!  Helps to remove the return spring

So today was generally a good day in the garage.  Got quite a bit done!  Cleaned up the sedan transmission(previous post) and got the CQ trans out!

Things moved along ok after that.  After figuring out what I had been doing wrong trying to get the hydro boost unit out, I set about cleaning up the vacuum booster I picked up.  A little love with a wire wheel before some paint... NOPE!  Damnit!

The hits just keep on coming!  I wasn't even hitting the thing hard at all, so that must have been hiding under the rust.  

A good friend offered me a B2 booster.  Need to find out if they are comparable.

Weld that up?

In reply to docwyte :

I had thought about it.  The problem is the seam looks really rough too.  This is why you don't pick up parts in the dark haha.

So this morning I got the rest of the hydro boost components out of the car.  Servo, accumulator, and hoses.

I need to figure out if I'm going to cut the return hoses from the hydro boost short and clamp some bolts in, or try to remove the hole thing and put a long Barb fitting it.

I just got home from picking this up.  It's from an '86 coupe GT.  All the measurements work out the same, just looks a little different.

It's a little rusty, but nothing compared to the other one.

I'll clean it up and throw some paint on it before install.  Either way, it is much better than the other one I have.

I do need to measure the booster rods though.  If they are the same length, I should be good to go, but if they are different, I'll have to do some adjusting 

Today was about the small victories!  I looped the hose on the hydro booster return, and sealer that up.  I then painted the "new" booster.

After letting that dry for about an hour, I fought the car to get it in!

I then played contortionist to get the 3 M10 lock nuts on inside the car.  Some duck tape on a socket so I could get them started and I was gold!  Very happy, until I realized I needed to crawl back under the dash to attach the return spring!  Oh, well that actually went quite easily.

I started to pull thing out of my garage, and it suddenly got very dark like it's going to rain, so I decided not to pull the engine into the driveway.  Instead I started looking at some other things I could attach to the engine before install.  I figured the breather tubes could go on a while.  I tried to put the one one that came with the car, no go.  It was hitting the BOS heat shield.  It turns out there IS a difference between the early and late breather tube.

The extra bends in it allow it to clear the heat shield.  So now I have to clean this one up...  I guess that tube that sticks up vertically can just be capped, as the late manifold doesn't use it.  I do need to figure out where the bracket for the tube attaches to though

That where I will stop today, my daughter is bugging me to play with her and not the car.

Today was a milestone day!  With it being quite nice outside, I pulled everything out and got going.  

Flywheel, clutch, and trans all attached!  It's way up in the air to install the oil pan to trans bolts as well as the starter.

After fighting to get the engine to hang in a correct enough position to put it between the frame rails, I finally got it in!

One major issue I ran into was with the AC line that runs along the PS fender.  I could not get the engine over far enough with that line in place.  I pulled it out, and it dropped right I to place.  I'm not sure if there is a difference between the early and late cars for that part.  I'll have to find out

One thing I forgot to mention was when manipulating the engine/trans into place, I noticed a puddle forming under the car.  It turns out the clutch line let go at some point.  With having little option with what to do there, one was ordered from here.  Clutch lines

I will also be ordering a set of brake lines to match.  The ones on the car are like rocks...

Not much of an update, I need to decide if I want to weld up the "new" subframe, or if I want to try to clean up the original one and see how bad it is.  I'll say it again, DON'T BUY PARTS IN THE DARK!  I don't care how much you think you can trust the person...

This is where the control arm is supposed to be mounted on the "new subframe

All 4 inner areas have some sort of cut off wheel marks.  I know I can weld it, grind it, and be all good, I'm just getting aggravating over buying supposedly good parts and finding crap like this.

Anyways, I did finally decide to put the front end of the parts car to good use.

I'll be building a box around it, filling with brick chip and then a flower box where the engine is supposed to be.  I need to figure out a way to make the headlights, corners, and fog lights illuminate.  My neighbor thinks it's awesome, when shall see what the powers that be have to say about it though haha.

And last but not least, I kind of went on a parts ordering binge.  That being said, the wife was starting to get a little pissy about the piles of box's around the house.  So today, I was made to "make them disappear!". So seeing as they are all for the CQ, they went in the hatch for now...

Oh, and this is the condensed version!  With more on the way!  Hopefully the weather cooperates soon, and I can finish getting the front end back together on this.  It's been too cold and wet outside to have the garage door open.

The other day I decided to attack the original subframe, because I hadn't welded the "new" subframe yet.  I'm glad I did, because other than some crusty spots, it really want that bad.  After a couple hours of scraping, hammering, and wire Wheeling, it looks descent.  So I went ahead and painted it.  2 coats of rustolium rust reformer, and 2 heavy coats of VHT chassis black epoxy paint.  Looks pretty good now!  

Then tonight I was bored at work, so I figured I would weld up the other subframe and clean it up too. Welding went ok, but was pulling all kinds of crap out of the metal.

I was welding at a pretty low temp trying not to burn away too much.  After I was satisfied with the multiple hacked up area repairs, I went ahead with the needle scaler to knock off the rust.  Wasn't exactly what I expected...

That hole started forming with a light pass over the area with the scaler.  I went back over it a couple time to see just how bad it was when it pretty much just caved in!  I had noticed the drain in that corner was rusted shut, but didn't thing too much of it, until this happened.  I figured I was in for more welding until I flipped it, and produced another home in the same area on the other side.  So after all that, I threw it in the scrap hopper here at work.  Such a waste.

Oh, and can anyone tell me what the hell these mounts are actually to?  They obviously aren't early small chassis mounts.

Man, that planter is a cool idea. I see the fogs and washer squirters and get jealous though

In reply to iansane (Forum Supporter) :

The fogs are probably going to come out.  They will fit the CQ...  The washer squirters will stay on though.  Who knows, maybe I can figure out a way to hook them up to water the flowers haha.

Ha! A mister setup would be awesome through those but I imagine it would exacerbate any rusting out issues.