The Daily Build..My S6, the story and the questions
09-13-2015, 11:18 AM
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The Daily Build..My S6, the story and the questions
Hiya fellas. Frequent lurker here for a proper introduction , looking for some advice, and offering some as well,
First, the introduction. I am Brian and I am building my 95 Audi URS6 as a daily driver so that I’m not piling the miles on the other babies in my stable.
The garage video;
They are , in order…
-My current daily until the S6 is finished is the 99 Porsche 996. I stole this car for 16k with a freshly built engine from a builder with an excellent reputation for these cars. I couldn’t turn it away.
-The 95 urS6-discussed later
-Under cover-94 Sentra SE-R purpose built race car(not mine)
-Under cover -92 BMW 750il Currently crashed, fully polished v-12, awaiting further restoration
-In the corner and unseen, (not mine)one of three right hand drive MK1 Scirocco’s in the country. Very rough car but awaiting restoration.
-The truck under the cover is a 83 Chevy (not mine) fully done up with 350 ci and four link rear. It is awaiting a bed restoration and it will be finished.
-My 1981 Scirocco show car. I am actually making a myriad of different products for these cars and trying to make it into a business as time goes. More to come there.
-
The red Audi 4000 is the General Lee. It is the farm go cart and field abuse machine. No second gear synchros anymore, is fully tagged and insured, and has a race tank strapped down in the trunk because the original one was so rusty. It can be seen in action on Youtube if you search for “General Lee at Clearbrook” The video is set to original music that is soon to come out on an album that my wife, myself, and five other people, collaborated on.
The only car not in the video is my wife’s 2001 Golf TDI that I did a complete rebuild on at 180k. It now makes around 250 lb ft of torque and gets upwards of 50 MPG with her foot in it constantly. It’s an amazing car that now drives like it’s brand new but with a whole lot more power.
So before I introduce the S6, first a little story. While I have always wanted one, I was not really in the market for one of these, but my arm got twisted, and I bought it. The car was on craigslist for upwards of three months and his price went from $3500 to 3000 to 2500 in that time. At that point I am smacking my hand on my forehead and asked him to make a local drive so that I could take a look at it. He showed up and I looked at the car and determined that I was at a max price of $2000. He said Ok and then I had to tell him that all I had on me was $1982 in cash and a cold beer, and it was a Sunday. He took the offer and had a friend come and pick him up. And he had to because it was hemorrhaging power steering fluid something terrible and I told him I did not want it if he had to drive it home. As an FYI, the car had 260k on the clock and I knew that most everything in it was going to be a time bomb.(and most of it has been)
The fluid was coming out of the unobtainium high pressure ps hose that I was able to get a friend of mine to reconstruct. If you want yours done, let me know, $100 plus shipping gets yours rebuilt.
I knew when I bought the car that it had a really nice, and recent, 3 inch stainless Stromung(sp?) turbo back exhaust with the race cat on it. What I revealed with some investigation was that it also had an RS2 turbo and manifold on it as well. Phhbbbt! Mind blown.
I have cracked open the ECU and it has the 2.5 bar sensor with what seems to be an Unintended Acceleration chip. This was on the ECU when I got it out;
Some basic investigation showed me that it is the number for Unintended Acceleration.
This is a video of what was in the ECU. These chips look stock but must have been modified because of the note.
A couple months after I bought the car, I was looking for wheels for it because it came with a set of really ugly 17 inch TSW’s with a horrible offset and worse yet, they were black…….YUUUUUKKKKKK., So I answered an ad on Craiglsit for a set of factory 16’s. I bought them and came to find out that there was another S6 guy in my area who was after them as well. I asked the guy selling the wheels to put us in touch and he did. As it turns out, he knew the car. And as it turns out, it was owned by a fellow who was very active in these forums back in his day, a guy who went by the handle of Boxflares. He passed away a couple of years ago and I feel honored to carry his torch given what I’ve read of him on the internets. It was Jay Leno that said it best, “We don’t ever own these cars, we’re just their temporary stewards.”
With all this being said, I would like to offer some knowledge that I have not been able to find on the forums. First, the fan clutch. Contrary to what is in the Bentley manual, the fan clutch threads ARE NOT “Left hand threaded”. The are normal lefty loosey righty tighty threads. I fought with this for a few days until I ordered the Audi tool used to hold the pulley in place while I hammered on it with the air tool that loosens the big nut.
I had to do the fan clutch because I was in pursuit of a noise that goes away when the serpentine belt is off the car. In this chase so far I have also done the alternator and PS pump, but it’s still there. The only things left that it could possibly be are either the AC compressor pulley(ac works fine) or the bolt in bearing behind the fan clutch. I am highly suspicious of the fan clutch pulley bearing. It will be on my list when I get to doing the timing belt.
I have also installed new rear trans mounts from 034. They went in nicely but getting the pass side one out was an adventure involving a sawzall and a new bolt. A point of note would be that upon replacing these sagging mounts I discovered that the drivetrain was positioned all the way to the rear of the allowed adjustment. This caused the old center carrier bearing to then manifest what was probably a binding effect exacerbated by the push reward of the drivetrain. After I replaced them, the center driveshaft started hitting on the heat shield. I moved the drivetrain forward in the car and it seemed to go away. I have a new carrier bearing lying in waith for when I feel like pulling the exhaust down and re-polishing it.
I have also delved into the HVAC system. Mine has the electronic control unit and was behaving such that the blower fan speed could only be changed some of the time. Thinking that it was a physical button problem I opened it up and found that the top two clips holding the board to the fascia were broken. I used some thick tape along the border of the fascia, to hold the board to the face better, but I think it only mildly helped.
I did a code check on the HVAC system and found that it was registering a code signifying that the blower fan was putting out a bad(of some sort) resistance number. The question I have yet to do my research on is weather or not there is a variable resistor of some sort between the HVAC controls and the blower. I’ll be finding out as I get further into the ignition cylinder/heater core/blower motor thing.
The next big thing that I am working on is a point of question for many C4 S6 owners. The infamous ignition switch. The one in my car was coming apart when I got it. So I replaced it with one I bought in a hurry, locally. But as it turned out, the biggest problem is that the grease, or lack thereof, inside the mechanical part of the lock cylinder had dried up causing it to bind. I don’t have it out of the car yet for one simple reason.
Running under the ignition switch lock cylinder, and blocking its path out of the already loosened steering column, is a formed plastic air tube that attaches to the heater box at the center of the dash. It runs close enough to the lock cylinder that the column can’t move down enough to get it out. So my question is this, do I need to take the whole dash out and apart in order to get this hose out of the way? In the interest of finding out, I moved up my heater core project so that I could get this resolved while I had everything apart. When I pulled the heater box I discovered that this plastic air hose is one piece from one end of the dash to the other…..UGH. This sucks, looks like I have to take it all apart…. Any suggestions?
According to the manual, all you need to do is loosen the column and bring it down and out of the mounting so the lock cylinder can come out. But what they don’t tell you is that this hose has to be out in order to do that. I guess the manual assumes that you have half the car apart already.
Freshly releathered column cover...mmmmm.....
Things I need if someone has them...
an OE 80/90/200 trip computer button for the installation of the EFI Boost gauge that uses the center display.
The endcap cover, with good screwhole tabs, for the driver’s side of the airbox.
Known good 329 relay, or another solution to why my back windows only work off the rear switches.
A decent set of the dirt flaps that cover the steering tie rods where they come into the engine bay.
First, the introduction. I am Brian and I am building my 95 Audi URS6 as a daily driver so that I’m not piling the miles on the other babies in my stable.
The garage video;
-My current daily until the S6 is finished is the 99 Porsche 996. I stole this car for 16k with a freshly built engine from a builder with an excellent reputation for these cars. I couldn’t turn it away.
-The 95 urS6-discussed later
-Under cover-94 Sentra SE-R purpose built race car(not mine)
-Under cover -92 BMW 750il Currently crashed, fully polished v-12, awaiting further restoration
-In the corner and unseen, (not mine)one of three right hand drive MK1 Scirocco’s in the country. Very rough car but awaiting restoration.
-The truck under the cover is a 83 Chevy (not mine) fully done up with 350 ci and four link rear. It is awaiting a bed restoration and it will be finished.
-My 1981 Scirocco show car. I am actually making a myriad of different products for these cars and trying to make it into a business as time goes. More to come there.
-The red Audi 4000 is the General Lee. It is the farm go cart and field abuse machine. No second gear synchros anymore, is fully tagged and insured, and has a race tank strapped down in the trunk because the original one was so rusty. It can be seen in action on Youtube if you search for “General Lee at Clearbrook” The video is set to original music that is soon to come out on an album that my wife, myself, and five other people, collaborated on.
The only car not in the video is my wife’s 2001 Golf TDI that I did a complete rebuild on at 180k. It now makes around 250 lb ft of torque and gets upwards of 50 MPG with her foot in it constantly. It’s an amazing car that now drives like it’s brand new but with a whole lot more power.
So before I introduce the S6, first a little story. While I have always wanted one, I was not really in the market for one of these, but my arm got twisted, and I bought it. The car was on craigslist for upwards of three months and his price went from $3500 to 3000 to 2500 in that time. At that point I am smacking my hand on my forehead and asked him to make a local drive so that I could take a look at it. He showed up and I looked at the car and determined that I was at a max price of $2000. He said Ok and then I had to tell him that all I had on me was $1982 in cash and a cold beer, and it was a Sunday. He took the offer and had a friend come and pick him up. And he had to because it was hemorrhaging power steering fluid something terrible and I told him I did not want it if he had to drive it home. As an FYI, the car had 260k on the clock and I knew that most everything in it was going to be a time bomb.(and most of it has been)
The fluid was coming out of the unobtainium high pressure ps hose that I was able to get a friend of mine to reconstruct. If you want yours done, let me know, $100 plus shipping gets yours rebuilt.
I knew when I bought the car that it had a really nice, and recent, 3 inch stainless Stromung(sp?) turbo back exhaust with the race cat on it. What I revealed with some investigation was that it also had an RS2 turbo and manifold on it as well. Phhbbbt! Mind blown.
I have cracked open the ECU and it has the 2.5 bar sensor with what seems to be an Unintended Acceleration chip. This was on the ECU when I got it out;
Some basic investigation showed me that it is the number for Unintended Acceleration.
This is a video of what was in the ECU. These chips look stock but must have been modified because of the note.
A couple months after I bought the car, I was looking for wheels for it because it came with a set of really ugly 17 inch TSW’s with a horrible offset and worse yet, they were black…….YUUUUUKKKKKK., So I answered an ad on Craiglsit for a set of factory 16’s. I bought them and came to find out that there was another S6 guy in my area who was after them as well. I asked the guy selling the wheels to put us in touch and he did. As it turns out, he knew the car. And as it turns out, it was owned by a fellow who was very active in these forums back in his day, a guy who went by the handle of Boxflares. He passed away a couple of years ago and I feel honored to carry his torch given what I’ve read of him on the internets. It was Jay Leno that said it best, “We don’t ever own these cars, we’re just their temporary stewards.”
With all this being said, I would like to offer some knowledge that I have not been able to find on the forums. First, the fan clutch. Contrary to what is in the Bentley manual, the fan clutch threads ARE NOT “Left hand threaded”. The are normal lefty loosey righty tighty threads. I fought with this for a few days until I ordered the Audi tool used to hold the pulley in place while I hammered on it with the air tool that loosens the big nut.
I had to do the fan clutch because I was in pursuit of a noise that goes away when the serpentine belt is off the car. In this chase so far I have also done the alternator and PS pump, but it’s still there. The only things left that it could possibly be are either the AC compressor pulley(ac works fine) or the bolt in bearing behind the fan clutch. I am highly suspicious of the fan clutch pulley bearing. It will be on my list when I get to doing the timing belt.
I have also installed new rear trans mounts from 034. They went in nicely but getting the pass side one out was an adventure involving a sawzall and a new bolt. A point of note would be that upon replacing these sagging mounts I discovered that the drivetrain was positioned all the way to the rear of the allowed adjustment. This caused the old center carrier bearing to then manifest what was probably a binding effect exacerbated by the push reward of the drivetrain. After I replaced them, the center driveshaft started hitting on the heat shield. I moved the drivetrain forward in the car and it seemed to go away. I have a new carrier bearing lying in waith for when I feel like pulling the exhaust down and re-polishing it.
I have also delved into the HVAC system. Mine has the electronic control unit and was behaving such that the blower fan speed could only be changed some of the time. Thinking that it was a physical button problem I opened it up and found that the top two clips holding the board to the fascia were broken. I used some thick tape along the border of the fascia, to hold the board to the face better, but I think it only mildly helped.
I did a code check on the HVAC system and found that it was registering a code signifying that the blower fan was putting out a bad(of some sort) resistance number. The question I have yet to do my research on is weather or not there is a variable resistor of some sort between the HVAC controls and the blower. I’ll be finding out as I get further into the ignition cylinder/heater core/blower motor thing.
The next big thing that I am working on is a point of question for many C4 S6 owners. The infamous ignition switch. The one in my car was coming apart when I got it. So I replaced it with one I bought in a hurry, locally. But as it turned out, the biggest problem is that the grease, or lack thereof, inside the mechanical part of the lock cylinder had dried up causing it to bind. I don’t have it out of the car yet for one simple reason.
Running under the ignition switch lock cylinder, and blocking its path out of the already loosened steering column, is a formed plastic air tube that attaches to the heater box at the center of the dash. It runs close enough to the lock cylinder that the column can’t move down enough to get it out. So my question is this, do I need to take the whole dash out and apart in order to get this hose out of the way? In the interest of finding out, I moved up my heater core project so that I could get this resolved while I had everything apart. When I pulled the heater box I discovered that this plastic air hose is one piece from one end of the dash to the other…..UGH. This sucks, looks like I have to take it all apart…. Any suggestions?
According to the manual, all you need to do is loosen the column and bring it down and out of the mounting so the lock cylinder can come out. But what they don’t tell you is that this hose has to be out in order to do that. I guess the manual assumes that you have half the car apart already.
Freshly releathered column cover...mmmmm.....
Things I need if someone has them...
an OE 80/90/200 trip computer button for the installation of the EFI Boost gauge that uses the center display.
The endcap cover, with good screwhole tabs, for the driver’s side of the airbox.
Known good 329 relay, or another solution to why my back windows only work off the rear switches.
A decent set of the dirt flaps that cover the steering tie rods where they come into the engine bay.
09-13-2015, 12:34 PM
#2
Lots to comment on. I won't try to comment on all of it.
1st thing is based on the cars in your shop, you should be posting on motorgeek if you aren't already. This forum deals with basically stock or lightly modified UrS4s and UrS6s.
I read the writing on the ECU and was curious about the phone number so I did a reverse look up as well. It is Ned Ritchie's Intended Acceleration phone number. Ned did a lot of chips for 10VT chips were deemed Stage 1 and Stage 2. When he got to the 20VT cars, the chip designation was Stage 3 and Stage 3+ (compariable to everyone else's Stage 1 and Stage 1+). "+" chips used a 3 Bar (300 kPa) manifold absolute pressure (MAP) sensor rather than the stock 250 kPa (2.5 Bar) MAP sensor.
Ned was a bit paranoid about people stealing his chip code so you would send him your ECU. Ned would remove your stock timing (Upper board) and boost (lower board) chips and then erase them. Then he would install his code (probably based on Lehmann code which was very linearly progressive (incomparison to the very ON/off nature of the MTM Stage 1 and Stage 1+ chips)). Then he would resolder your newly programmed chips back into the ECU. It wasn't impossible to steal his code, just inconvenient (not sure if he added a security code in there). The good news was you got chips that met or exceeded Audi's original 20VT chip specs, not something from Radio Shack.
Ned subsequently retired and sold the Intended Acceleration business to Alex Neckas in Woodinville Washington ( Contact Intended Acceleration )
Intended Accelerations Products and Pricing:
Pricing
As for the mechanical portion of the ignition lock, I would NOT remove the lock from the housing. Not needed to solve the problem. Just get some of the professional sprays that locksmiths use to lubricate locks. I had some in my hand yesterday. This is NOT graphite based (which would just gum things up more). This is something with a solvent and teflon in it.
The electrical switch portion = replace while you are there. 4A0905849B or 4A0905849C.
Search SiteSearch 4A0905849B - 4A0905849B - Ignition Switch - ES#363895
http://12v.org/urs/IgnitionSwitchReplacementDIY.pdf
Heater core replacement:
http://12v.org/urs/C4UrSHeaterCoreRe...ntDIY_Rev1.pdf
Steve Mills (Boxflares) was very active in the UrS4/S6 scene. He was very well respected. Steve and I butted heads on more than one occasion but I always respected him. We all miss his contributions to the UrS community.
1st thing is based on the cars in your shop, you should be posting on motorgeek if you aren't already. This forum deals with basically stock or lightly modified UrS4s and UrS6s.
I read the writing on the ECU and was curious about the phone number so I did a reverse look up as well. It is Ned Ritchie's Intended Acceleration phone number. Ned did a lot of chips for 10VT chips were deemed Stage 1 and Stage 2. When he got to the 20VT cars, the chip designation was Stage 3 and Stage 3+ (compariable to everyone else's Stage 1 and Stage 1+). "+" chips used a 3 Bar (300 kPa) manifold absolute pressure (MAP) sensor rather than the stock 250 kPa (2.5 Bar) MAP sensor.
Ned was a bit paranoid about people stealing his chip code so you would send him your ECU. Ned would remove your stock timing (Upper board) and boost (lower board) chips and then erase them. Then he would install his code (probably based on Lehmann code which was very linearly progressive (incomparison to the very ON/off nature of the MTM Stage 1 and Stage 1+ chips)). Then he would resolder your newly programmed chips back into the ECU. It wasn't impossible to steal his code, just inconvenient (not sure if he added a security code in there). The good news was you got chips that met or exceeded Audi's original 20VT chip specs, not something from Radio Shack.
Ned subsequently retired and sold the Intended Acceleration business to Alex Neckas in Woodinville Washington ( Contact Intended Acceleration )
Intended Accelerations Products and Pricing:
Pricing
As for the mechanical portion of the ignition lock, I would NOT remove the lock from the housing. Not needed to solve the problem. Just get some of the professional sprays that locksmiths use to lubricate locks. I had some in my hand yesterday. This is NOT graphite based (which would just gum things up more). This is something with a solvent and teflon in it.
The electrical switch portion = replace while you are there. 4A0905849B or 4A0905849C.
Search SiteSearch 4A0905849B - 4A0905849B - Ignition Switch - ES#363895
http://12v.org/urs/IgnitionSwitchReplacementDIY.pdf
Heater core replacement:
http://12v.org/urs/C4UrSHeaterCoreRe...ntDIY_Rev1.pdf
Steve Mills (Boxflares) was very active in the UrS4/S6 scene. He was very well respected. Steve and I butted heads on more than one occasion but I always respected him. We all miss his contributions to the UrS community.
09-13-2015, 01:18 PM
#3
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It feels like the switch is binding in both the lock cylinder and the mechanism on the top. Not sure if I can get that stuff to where it will help it. Nonetheless, I will definitely give it a shot if it keeps me from having to get this thing out. Thanks, for the input. Any particular brand of that lube?
09-13-2015, 02:26 PM
#4
It feels like the switch is binding in both the lock cylinder and the mechanism on the top. Not sure if I can get that stuff to where it will help it. Nonetheless, I will definitely give it a shot if it keeps me from having to get this thing out. Thanks, for the input. Any particular brand of that lube?
Last edited by UrS4boy; 09-13-2015 at 03:10 PM.
12-24-2015, 06:07 AM
#5
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Yup. A simple lube job did wonders for the mechanical part of the ignition switch. Thanks URS4boy!!
Now on to the restoration of my 7 and the Scirocco.....
Now on to the restoration of my 7 and the Scirocco.....
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