The New One So Far

OK, so what have I been up to in the six months or so since I added this one to my collection?

Well, I know that it's difficult to see in this picture, but the front suspension just wasn't right - the car was sitting so low at the front that I couldn't get even one finger into the gap between the tyre and the wheel arch and the top mounts were distorted. Pulled the front struts and discovered one or two bodges - the top mounts were new but some non-descript pattern parts, nothing really wrong with that other than the fact that they weren't stiff enough for the car and had been fitted with a number of very thin packing washers so wouldn't bed onto the strut piston rod properly. Took the springs off and compared them with the front set from the silver car - the unloaded springs were longer, had one more coil and were of a thinner section steel, so I junked them in favour of the OE set with new blue top mounts.

There was an obvious (very) hydraulic leak that had coated the left side of the engine - easy fix, one of the hoses was slightly loose at the power steering pump. New cambelt, water pump and idle roller have been fitted and while I was digging into the depths of the engine compartment I checked the exhaust manifold. It was ok, but its fitting to the head wasn't, as only six of the ten exhaust studs were in place. Actually, that wasn't too much of a surprise, a new head had been fitted not long before I bought the car and for some reason replacement Audi heads never seem to have the studs inserted tight enough - I've found that you have to tighten them all within a few months or you lose them, maybe it's something to do with heat cycling, running the engine and then letting it cool. Anyway, fitted some new studs, replaced two missing engine/bellhousing bolts and one of the wastegate support brackets.

Most of the bonded rubber mounting under the bonnet had either seen better days or had been replaced with ill-fitting generic fittings so all of them have been replaced - the ones supporting the auxillary radiator were so wrong that one of the brackets had been crudely extended so that it would fit. As the radiator wasn't in too good condition prompted me to fit one of my spare units, something that I also did with the main radiator, not because of damage, the main unit was brand new but had one of the vent hose connections in the wrong place and it fouled the washer fluid container.

A number of the hoses had seen better days too, so were replaced by better ones from my stock of used spares. This was where I hit something that had me scratching my head for a while - the big intercooler to throttle hose had been trimmed by a bit more than 1" but appeared to fit perfectly while an untrimmed hose was obviously too long. When I compared the engine position with that of the engine in the red quattro it seemed to me that the engine was perhaps a little low - difficult to tell really, because the cars have different engine types and for some reason the clearence between the oil sump and the subframe was identical on both cars indicating that the engine mounting were good. (The mounting on the righthand side of an Ur quattro engine is very close to the turbocharger and unless the correct heatshield is fitted (and in good condition) the mounting gets cooked very quickly.) I didn't rely on that diagnosis so I removed one of the mountings to discover that it was actually one from a four-door Audi 80 saloon and was something close to 1" lower than the correct type. Once both engine mounts had been replaced with the correct items the untrimmed throttle hose then fitted correctly.

When I bought the car it was fitted with later model one-piece headlights instead of the four smaller lights that are correct for the car - this had been done by the previous owner because "the lights weren't very good". Well, they weren't even when this quattro was new - the high-beam element of the H4 lamps were never connected so when the main beams were switched on what you actually get is the low beam from the H4 and the high beam from the H1, not what people expect when they are used to modern vehicles. The change to later lights meant that there were a number of Scotchloced splices and soldered connections to be removed and repaired but this wasn't all. The main loom on early quattros is actually of two-piece design with a large 9 terminal connector positioned just behind the lefthand headlight - this connector didn't exist, there was just a mass of soldered connections wrapped up with plastic tape. The parts car came to the rescue again, donating a connector block, so I crimped new terminals to the two halves of the loom and sealed the whole thing against water ingress with some clear silicone.

The condition of the lamp units when removed from the car was strange, the rear of them being covered with mud, something which shouldn't happen as the Ur quattro has a fliche plate (actually a plate with a welded 'extension') mounted under the front wing just forward of the wheel arch. This plate has two uses, to provide a support for the front bumper surround and also to block any rubbish being thrown forwards from the wheel.

A look at the plates on this car showed that they were not the size and shape that I expected and I initially attributed this to the car being a very early model, effectively a factory 'modified' FWD coupe - beam axle mounts on the rear of the floor pan and some metal clips on the right chassis leg (used on coupes to clip the main cable where it runs between the alternator and the under bonnet battery) also pointed at this - but checking with the owner of a car of similar age showed that although his car had the axle mounts and cable clips, the fliche plates were of the same size and shape as later cars.

Closer investigation of my plates revealled that they had been trimmed, possibly due to the ravages of rust over the years. Wet, salty mud on the plastic back of a Cibie one-piece lamp unit is no problem but the rear of a Hella 'quad' unit is different, being the back of a metal reflector and very prone to corrosion so sealing the gap was a priority. To do achieve this, each plate required two additional pieces of metal, the first to bring the base plate back to it's correct size and shape and the second to form the 'extension'.

The lefthand side was not a difficult job and removing the wing revealled no horrors, unlike what I found under the right wing. Numerous badly welded patches hidden behind layers of filler, silicone sealant and Hammerite paint. If I had left things alone I'd never have been happy, so out came the cutters and spot weld drill. Luckily, the bonnet slam panel is made up from three pieces of metal spot welded together so I was able to cut the welds on the rightmost piece and remove it to provide better access to the inner wing.

Before