It shouldn't be this hard!

Post date: Oct 12, 2016 9:53:56 PM

It's been a while, but no major changes.

Managed to make an Optima Red Top vent acid by leaving it connected to a 3A draw for a few weeks. It'll only hold about 4V, but oddly enough is healthy enough that the car can run once jump started without hurting the alternator. I thought I'd be smart and save a few bucks by getting a battery through Amazon. Of course the one I got was manufactured wrong - you could hear bubbling/venting out a gap in the case. To Amazon's credit they sent out a replacement right away, no return necessary. While I was in there I re-did the battery leads (necessary due to acid contamination) and the ground hookups using a large bus bar from Blue Sea Systems and a hydraulic lug press.

Shaun helped me swap intakes after I got the other one tanked and cut. Thankfully everything looked pretty good in the old one. #7 is pulling some oil, but everything still looked OK. I have a few miles on it and, of course, now it looks like that leak in the front is entirely from the timing cover and crank seal. There's also a few drops on the transmission inspection cover - rear of the oil pan and not the crank seal, I hope. So looks like I get to re-do the pan again whenever the engine is back out. Shaun also gifted a fancy aluminum tranny pan, and I got the fancy Lube Locker gasket. Now it looks like the kickdown is the leak point.

I dropped the A/C belt. It never cooled terribly well, and now the compressor is leaking oil out the snout. Looks like my grand plan of using a ""new"" A6 and doing the seal retrofit isn't such a great idea. Looking at the Pro6Ten unit now.

The big work was suspension. There was a 3.5" rake back to front with the SPC lowering springs and the headers scraped a lot. I got Eibach springs (1.3" lower instead of 2") but the right height was about the same. So I got some 3/4" spacers. Well, I actually inspected things that time and learned some interesting stuff.

1) Using Chevy header spreaders to pop out spindle ball joints is a bad idea - it'll still mangle the threads on the studs

2) The tall lower ball joints push the lower control arm down, and the Hotchkis arms have a huge amount of material there, which then comes out of the recess in the disc brake baking plate, thereby pushing the backing plate into the rotor, destroying the rotor and pad

3) The Hotchkis arms weren't machined right. The opening for the ball joint was ~0.020" too small which was causing the binding on the ball joints, ruined the studs and permanently deformed the ball joint housings.

All of that led to 8 to 10 weeks down time. The control arms were "fixed", then had to have the "fix" "fixed". Still cheaper than new arms, but yeesh. Then rotors were a headache. The locally sourced stuff was a grab bag - one was obviously bad out of the casting block and never should have been machined, let alone shipped. I went with slotted Centric stuff thinking they'd only do that machining on their best units. Well, not necessarily. But they're acceptable. Also tried the Raybestos EHT pads. They seem to work pretty well, although the pedal got REALLY soft during bed-in. The rear shoes are squealing really bad - currently Raybestos stuff - so trying the Centric Heavy Duty items.

In any case, it's back together now. The spacers initially raised the front 1.5" (as expected), but the first big bump resulted in a loud "CLUNK" and the front dropped about 3/4". Inspection with a camera doesn't show anything unusual, sooo.......

It's a more acceptable rake and doesn't drag nearly as often.

Also set all the shocks to "1 turn" (half-way setting).

I'm thinking the immediate term is

A/C

Paint dash, dash pad, and final wiring changes

Body work

Errata:

Drill a "Hydroboost" hole in the brake pedal. hah!

Prep and paint second dash pad and dash

Startup and fail-safe algorithm on the computer to prevent full-speed fan when not appropriate. The 10 second turn-on delay for the computer control isn't sufficient

Final mount of the computer

Wire an IGN1 signal for the O2 sensor

See if the PS system is done leaking and whining......... (this one stays on the list forever)