onlyaudis

did a car tour to Mt Hamilton / Lick Observatory today in the Quattro. really good shake down test for the car, and it performed flawlessly. it was in the high 80's, and no overheating issues. I could keep up with all the sports cars easily on the twisties too. Love driving this car. Most comfortable car I have ever done a car tour in.










A/C struggled to keep the car cool with outside temps near 90. Seemed like the compressor cut out too soon and didn't really chill the air as low as it should. found this ancient AW thread below about how to adjust this, and did it today. made a big difference. lowered the cut off temp from the high 40's to the mid 30's. Had to turn the adjustment screw mentioned in the thread 3 full turns. This may be a needed adjustment for any car converted to the less efficient 134A coolant.

https://www.audiworld.com/forums/sho...php?p=19158629


Installed the all metal heater valve pictured above, and it fits and works perfectly. From the earlier 4000 FWD cars.

audi-driver1126

that car is a work of art. I would be in heaven with that in my driveway. I rallied my 4000S on some smooth damp gravel roads just the other day. Considering my suspension is a little on the rough side and my tires are way out of line, it still performed great. I could do 90 km/h and higher through some of the areas, its front wheel drive but it felt stable. The back would just begin to come out of line at high speed cornering, but it was easily controllable.

It felt good compared to alot of other cars, especially the domestic ones...Its really to bad i couldnt get any footage of my drive. I even got a few inches off the ground after hitting a very smooth camber in the road, the landing was good, nothing broken. I think even the engine liked being driven hard, i usually drive it like a granny...

onlyaudis

Thanks for the compliments on my old Quattro. we owned a light blue metallic 1984 FWD 4000 with dark blue cloth interior way back when. My wife loved that car.

just for fun, I went and re-read this thread from the beginning. I realized it has been about 2 months since I got the car. been quite an experience for me to harness the enthusiasm I had for this project and make my "to do" list for it shorter and shorter over the past couple of months. Except for one long expensive repair day at Tomas Sport Tuning, and the A/C 134 conversion, i have done all the work on it myself.

To answer my original question, I can say right now I wasn't nuts for getting the car. Even though I owned one of these cars for 4-5 years a while back, I never really did the hands on kind of work on that car I am capable of now (I am a late bloomer car guy). Got to get your hands a bit dirty to really get to know a car. After the hard drive to Mt Hamilton, my trust in the car went way up, and my respect for what Audi was able to build way back 28 years ago went way up as well-think about what most other cars were like that were being sold in the early 80's. Except for a rear sway bar, this car is all stock, and it is the most comfortable and responsive car I have ever done a hard drive like this with. An hour or 2 into the drive, I also realized I didn't even "feel the drivers seat" -no pain or discomfort anywhere in my body (and since it is cloth, i wasn't sticking to it either) They don't / can't make light weight all wheel drive sedans like this anymore, and I am planning on hanging on to this one. In many ways, it is a better car than my 02 B6 A4 1.8t--more comfortable, better visibility, and may even overall be a better handling car than the 800 pound heavier A4. It is certainly more nimble. My stage 2 tuned A4 is just way faster. a stock one wouldn't be that much actually.

One last major part of the project is due to be here tomorrow--some very rare 15 X 7 inch beautiful vintage wheels. I was happy with the factory wheels and will probably hang on to them, but when I found these, i had to get them. They are currently stripped to bare alloy and have been trued, but still need to be painted--which I am looking forward to doing.
here is a photo from the PO before they were stripped.. Wheel is an early 90's Compomotive CXN2 and looks a bit like the BBS RC. It is a dual bolt 4 X 100 and 4 X 108 and has correct alloy 57.1 centering rings. all the 4 center caps are accounted for and in good shape too. aggressive 33 offset--I will not need my spacers i was running on the factory wheels. these were never sold here in the US, and the UK rep told the PO in an email exchange he knows of only one other set here. I think the car will look even better with these, and they are more or less period wheels, not some ultra modern wheel that would look out of place on a car in this condition.

onlyaudis

Worked on the wheels that arrived today. they were in really nice shape and were nearly paint ready, having been stripped and trued by a wheel place that the PO took them to. Had some small curb rash that I repaired with USC All Metal, which is a very heavy duty aluminum based filler that adheres well to alloys. It is the only type of filler that can be used on things that will be powdercoated, although i am painting these wheels, i wanted the small repairs to last. Primed with Transtar DTM gray Euro primer (DTM=direct to metal) painted with Spies Hecker base coat, Audi silver that they use on the newer cars, and a tough Upol 2 part Urethane clear. Painted the center caps as well.













These wheels are a 15 X 7 35 offset, and with the 205 50 15's i will be running, will have the same backspace as the stock wheels, so inner clearance will be no problem. the rears will fit fine and should be nearly flush but will not stick out any further than the stock wheels and tires with the 20mm spacers i had been using (will not need any spacers with these wheels--they may be for sale) . the fronts may stick out 5-10mm more than what is ideal, as they are about right now with only 10mm spacers, and will stick out another 10mm or so past that.. they should be fine on my stock ride height car, but could rub on a lowered car unless you remove that center protruding top screw in the wheel arch, and maybe roll the fender a bit.

onlyaudis

onlyaudis

Took the car to a classic Audi expert today to look at the A/C which is still not cycling fast enough. the vent temps go up and down and vary by 20 degrees. That isn't what we worked on though.

Steve Nechodom owns Karmakanix in Berkeley and is factory trained on the older cars. he worked on my 87 way back in the mid 90's when he had a one man shop complete with most all Audi factory specialty tools, and is one of the best Audi mechanics I have ever met. He doesn't do much hands on work anymore, but I bugged him to look at my car A/C issues for old times sake. Right off the bat, after just driving it into the shop, he tells me the I5 isn't running right. we get it in the shop, and he finds 3 things wrong with it right away. the distributor's vacuum advance isn't working at all and is broken internally, one of the vacuum lines was still run wrong, and the idle switch is not functioning. Looks like the A/C will have to wait.

he pulled the injecters and test fired them , and 2 of them had very poor spray patterns even after we cleaned them, and the other 3 were not that great either.. The seals were original black ones and totally fried. How did the car run as good as it did? At least the compression tests showed all cylinders were healthy with readings in the 190's

So far we rigged up a working vacuum advance from a used good 4 CYL distributor, took apart and serviced the distributor,(with the factory tiny little puller tool), set the timing, got new injector seals and insulators, ordered new injectors to put in tomorrow at a good price, got the vacuum lines sorted out, and rigged up a working idle switch from a later car and adjusted it to spec. we will put the injectors in tomorrow and tune the CIS afterwards.

when I told him I had done the timing belt a few weeks back, he told me the crank nut is nearly impossible to get tight enough without the factory tools. sure enough, it was not that tight and took a full 1/2 turn with the factory tightening tools. he has seen them come loose on a lot of cars over the years and cause damage. He said I had the timing belt adjustment too tight too,(its making some noise) and we will try to take care of that tomorrow as well and hopefully have some time to check out the a/C . he thinks its overcharged and also that the A/C shop may not have run the expansion valve's temp sender to the right location when they changed it out.

AudiCoupeGT1986

I wish I had a mechanic around that's worked on older VW and Audis before. I just got royally screwed by a shop that claimed they could work on my car but ended up being unable to do anything and charging me a painful amount. Lesson learned!

audi-driver1126

thats great! i did notice in your video that something just didnt sound usuall about it. The exhaust note was good, but the way it revved was different. Also sounds like you have a CV joint on its way out too.

i really wish i knew someone who could help with my car that well. im on a relatively small island. what is even worse is that the only Audi popular area is the southern end of the island. it has the only Audi dealer.