Piquant Petals

 Did a timing belt on J_____’s 91 Civic hatch.  Very easy on that car.  The parts store gave us the wrong crank seal though so we had to leave that.  Just the clutch/flywheel/rms left and that car is good for another god knows how many zillions of miles.

I found a 2000 model Passat at a local junk yard so I picked a few bits off of that.  Having local used parts is priceless.  Unfortunately it’s a FWD v6 which is the opposite of my AWD I4 Turbo, but there are still some useful things that carry over.

A/C on the integra is fixed now and works great.  The suction hose from the condenser exploded.  I got a new hose from said junk yard and put in a new receiver dryer.  The receiver dryer has to be replaced anytime your AC system has been open for more than a few hours, especially if its humid.  If not it can fail and crumble up blocking your system causing more exploding hoses.  My hose failed due to heat and or the PO over filling the system.  There is an aftermarket header on it without a heat shield and probably not by coincidence the radiator fan bearing, the radiator, and the a/c hose all failed within my short ownership.  I made a heat shield and stuck it in there, then got the system filled.  So far so good.  And just in time for this heat wave.

Awesome news on the Audi.  The Meyle upper control arms I specifically asked not to get from ECS failed in one year and 20k miles.  The stock ones lasted 10 years and 130k.  Way to go Meyle!!!1!11!!  I ordered some Moog arms which supposedly make TRW arms, which are the OEM manufacturers.  Luckily I did most of the work getting that job done last year by taking the upper ball joint pinch bolts out.  About an hour on each bolt with the BFH and some files.

Also on the audi:  I replaced my super awesome stainless shift knob with a lighter (still not as light as I wanted) stock WRX knob.  The heavy knob on Audi linkage just does not work.  It amplifies any slop there may be so the lightest knob inevitably feels the best.  Surprise surprise the stock audi knobs are super light weight plastic.  My car didn’t have a stock knob when I bought it or I may have figured out this problem sooner.

The WRX knob feels much better though and its good enough to not mess with it anymore.  The best would likely be an audi knob of some kind.

I’ve had a lot of time off this week so I’ve taken that time to really go nuts on cleaning the GS-R.  Scrubbie, dish soap, and q-tips.  It does look a lot better now, and after hours of it I’m almost done.

I also learned a neat little trick for floor mats and carpets, especially light colors.  You take them out of the car, drip a little dish soap on them, then scrub it with a stiff brush.  Finally you hose it off or power wash it at a coin car wash.  On light colors it’s night and day, the S6’s 13 year old light carpets looked new.  It works on seats too if you have a place to dry them and time enough to have the car down for a while.

Q-tips and some soapy water work well around switches and to get the grime out of vents.

A little black spray paint and some cleaning really help on the exposed metal parts as well, those bolts at the base of seats and in door pull cubbies.

That goes for rusty painted black engine bay brackets and bolts also.

Windshield wiper arms are especially prone to rusting and chipping so thats a good candidate for a few layers of black and maybe some glaze or wax afterward.

The end result is like a totally different car.   And thats about where i am with the GS-r.  Its a totally different car from the one I bought.  Another week or so and it will be as finished as it’s going to be for the money.

Over the past 6 months or so I’ve had a string of failing cooling systems on my cars.  First the Blueberry’s, my now sold 92 miata,  radiator  began leaking severely.  I replaced that.  Next I noticed the GS-R’s radiator had been leaking for some time and was getting worse with my long commutes.  Then finally the A4 showed a coolant light one morning as the Mrs. was about to leave for work.

Enough of the coolant leaks already!  I took this as a sign that perhaps I become hot headed too easily (true) and that I should cool off.

At any rate replacing the radiator in the GS-R was a matter of about 3 bolts and two hose clamps.  I noticed that I was replacing a non-oem radiator.  The one that I was putting in was indeed the third radiator for this car!

The A4 was not to let me off that easily.  There is a plastic junction/flange at the back of the block that mates to a metal crossover pipe from the upper radiator hose, a hose from the heater core, and it also has two ports for sensors.  The A4 only used one port for the CTS so it had a plug for the second.

The housing was cracked and the o-rings were bad.   So I ordered the whole mess and prepared to put it all together except that the new flange and sensor did not include any new o-rings.  They are very irregular audi sized rings so trips to Lowes and a local hardware store yielded zero.

I tried all kinds of weird combinations of rings and RTV until J____ came back from a distant locale with a box of 400 metric o-rings.  Wooo!  I took the crossover pipe and the flange out of the car and silicone’d them together with new o-rings.  That was that, after two days of nonsense.

So in closing I’d like to say that after having coolant dripped on my head and having bought round pieces of rubber which cost considerably less than the shipping for them (yes, EIGHT dollars shipping for an o-ring) I am quite pleased with the idea of being finished with coolant for hopefully some time to come.

The battery on the GS-R has been unenthusiastic the last few weeks. It usually gave me a rrr-rrr rrr-rrr rrr-rrr BRRArrumm. Or if I turned off all of the accessories a rrr rrr rr BaRrumm. Last night with the failing breaths of a dying emphysema patient it left this world to the tune of rrr…rrrrrr…rrrrrrrrrrrrr. I had some stuff necessitating a vehicle today so I had the immense joy of replacing the fallen in the dark in 8 degree weather with a flashlight in my teeth. The vibrant 500 cca youth in my engine bay now eagerly explodes to life after a mere rr-rr. Now to check that key off battery drain current..

This past spring my family and I decided to go for an outing on a whim. We all piled into the A4 and I piloted it off down a few of our local roads noting that something wasn’t right with the clutch engagement. At the first stop sign it was apparent that my original factory clutch had just expired. I nursed it back home and the outing was executed in another vehicle.

A bit later after a joyous install I was breaking in a Southbend OFE stg 3 clutch on a new Fidanza light weight flywheel.

It’s been a few thousand miles now and everything is still working great. The clutch grabs hard and holds perfectly but has a stock feel to it. A little too stock for my tastes really, if I have any complaints it’s that the clutch is a bit too vague. I’m comparing it to the FWD ACT HDSS clutch that I put into the Accord. That clutch was brilliant on the 200hp H22 but it wouldn’t hold the power that I’m looking for in the A4.

The flywheel on the other hand, thats a whole different story. That single piece has transformed the car. First through third continue to be markedly faster than before and driving it has become much more pleasant. Lets face it, stock Audi’s are as numb and vague as your arm after you’ve slept on it all night. This part made the biggest difference of all of the parts I’ve added to roll over and let the blood back in this arm. I’ve experienced no loss in drivability and neither has my wife.

So in summary I highly recommend getting a lightweight flywheel for this engine. The clutch I’m on the fence about, it’s very streetable with a light pedal but is still a hair too vague after getting used to a sharp performance organic clutch(ACT).

Happy motoring!

  This journal is going to be an up to date reflection of the automotive pursuits that my compatriot’s and I engage in.  The more useful information will eventually make it to my website.

I have, in the past, logged these events on my Livejournal.  I have long realized that no one could see them there, and the people who could didn’t care about such things.

Hopefully this can give a wider (and perhaps interested) audience a window into our astounding trips to the land of valve adjustments and code reading.