My A2 Project - 'The Pocket Rocket!'

rgh-key

Member
I wanted to document my experiences so far with my A2 aptly known as 'The Pocket Rocket' around my local neighborhood.

A little history to start with, I purchased the car from my Grandfather-in-Law for £950, with a view to getting it back on the road, the Audi had been sat in his garage for 3 years, untouched, unloved and very very dusty!

The car is rather special as it has the factory fitted red leather interior and working OSS, it's quite an odd build as it doesn't have the red leather steering wheel or gearstick Gaitor and it also doesn't have air-conditioning which I am told is rather unusual for an A2.

The car came with the following faults and part of the agreement was that for £950 the car had 12 months MOT:

Front N/S Spring Broken
PAS Fault
Brake Light Switch Failure
Front Fixed Glass Section Of OSS Missing

We set about repairing these faults one by one to get 'The Pocket Rocket' ready for its big test!
 
The Broken Front Spring

I would like to add before I start that at the beginning of this project we were on a very tight budget i.e. my Grandfather-in-Law was paying for all the repairs to get the car road legal!

So we decided after bad experiences with spring compressors exploding! That we would get a complete strut for the car, we set about looking around on eBay and managed to find a used strut from a 2002 (52) A2 TDI for £28 so we quickly snapped this up and awaited delivery of the part.

The strut arrived in a timely manner and we set about fitting it on a Sunday morning, these bottom strut fitting is unusual on the A2 TDI as it's a clamp type rather that the more traditional method of two bolts through the strut and wheel hub assembly. We loosend the clamp bolt and set about trying to split the wheel hub from the strut, let me tell you it was tight, very tight. (just for some information the service notes advise that the drive shaft and bottom ball joint are removed to allow a transmission jack to split the joint) we used what is commonly known as brute force and ignorance to get the job done, other than that the job was straight forward, room is limited to remove the strut top bolts if you have hands like spades such as myself but a doable job for any DIY mechanic took around 2 hours

***I have since got two new springs ready to be fitted to the car when I get some time***
 
The Power Steering Problem Diagnosis

The symptoms of this problem were heavy steering after a prolonged period of going lock to lock, in a parking situation for example.

To start diagnosing the problem we hooked up my laptop with VCDs Lite installed to see if there was any fault logged by the EACH, this was clear for everything PAS related so we moved on to mechanical problems. The PAS pump is accessible by removing the front N/S headlamp, you can see the reservoir and easily top up the fluid if required.

We removed the lid and operated the steering from left to right lock, the fluid was been aerated massively turning it into a thick foaming froth, we believed that this was causing the steering to go heavy, however we didn't know where the air leak was coming from.

All of the pipe work too and from the rack was inspected for visable leaks, there were however none apparent, the one thing we did notice was around the inner wheel arch liner (which has to be removed to get access to the physical pump body) it was very moist, also the PAS reservoir was held on for the pump body by a jubilee clip which didn't seem right. It looked as though we had our culprit!
 
The Power Steering Problem Remedy

So we were pretty sure that the pump was the problem part of the PAS circuit letting air in via the reservoir seal, again on a tight budget we got back in to everyone's favourite online auction website at set about looking for a pump.... EXPENSIVE.... Some were on eBay for around £700! My Grandfather-in-Law was having palpitations at this point, however, after a lot of late night searching and eBay messaging I managed to secure a used unit with a 30 day warranty (WOW!) For £30.

When we got the part we decided to have a go at fitting it ourselves, the process was not to bad at all, there is 3 bolts holding the pump onto a metal bracket via rubber mountings, the front bolt is the hardest one to remove and required my ratchet spanner that has an adjustable angle and two pipes one with is held on by a 19mm union, the return line via a hose clip. Whole job took around 1.5 hours to complete and I am happy to say resolved the problem.
 
I wanted to document my experiences so far with my A2 aptly known as 'The Pocket Rocket' around my local neighborhood.

A little history to start with, I purchased the car from my Grandfather-in-Law for £950, with a view to getting it back on the road, the Audi had been sat in his garage for 3 years, untouched, unloved and very very dusty!

The car is rather special as it has the factory fitted red leather interior and working OSS, it's quite an odd build as it doesn't have the red leather steering wheel or gearstick Gaitor and it also doesn't have air-conditioning which I am told is rather unusual for an A2.

The car came with the following faults and part of the agreement was that for £950 the car had 12 months MOT:

Front N/S Spring Broken
PAS Fault
Brake Light Switch Failure
Front Fixed Glass Section Of OSS Missing

We set about repairing these faults one by one to get 'The Pocket Rocket' ready for its big test!

Not that odd for an A2 with opensky and no aircon, particularly on pre 2002 A2's where the deal for metallic paint and aircon for £550 was not in place. My TDI is a 2001MY with opensky but no aircon (climate)
 
The Brake Light Switch

By this point 'The Pocket Rocket' was well on her way to getting a MOT again, we moved the car out of the garage to was the three years of dust and grime of the Brilliant Black paintwork and noticed that the ABS light came on, the engine management light and the ,flow plug light was flashing. I can tell you my heart sank as I thought the 3 years of neglect had taken there toll on the A2. I fired up my laptop and connected it to the car.

'Brake Light Switch - Implausible Signal'

We then checked the rear brake lights, nothing not a sausage when the peddle was pressed. With this I drove down to Euro Car Parts to pick up a switch for £8.

Again fitting wasn't too tricky space is limited but it's doable in around 30 mins, just be careful removing the plastic trim from under the steering wheel, some heavy handed ape had removed it before and cracked all of the plastic clip surrounds so I repaired them with fibre glass so that the covers fitted properly again as they were extremely loose before...
 
The Service

We wanted to change the oil and filters ready for the MOT to get the best emissions and to make sure it was ready for everyday use after the MOT was obtained.

I can honestly say that this is one of the nicest cars I have serviced everything is accessible, the longest part of the job was removing the under tray which had a couple of rusted screws that had to be extracted. The only special tool needed is a 36mm socket to remove the oil filter housing other than that the rest of the service uses standard tools found in most DIY tool boxes. I used Mobil 5W30 low SAPS oil to try and reduce the soot emissions and genuine Audi Air and Oil filter obtained from my local dealer Stoke Audi.

The under tray was all cracked so before fitting this back on I repaired it with Fibre Glass, I will add photos to the next post showing how this was done.
 
The Under Tray Part 1

As I said in the previous post the under tray was quite badly cracked in a couple of places, I purchased a fibre glass repair kit from Halfrauds for £10 and started to repair the under tray. It was my first time using fibre glass and I didn't realise how messy it was and also how quickly it started to set! Rapid isn't the word!
 

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The Under Tray Part 2

Once the fibre glass had set and I was happy with the fix I got some black spray paint and just finished it off with a coat to make it look forecourt fresh :D I had to be a little creative at the front of the tray as one of the fixing holes had been destroyed, again this was re-manufactured using my new found fibre glassing skills and a hole drilled to accommodate the securing screw. I have attached a few pictures of the tray before and after spraying. I have to say that I was impressed with the result!
 

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The Big Clean Up

So apart from the roof not been finished 'The Pocket Rocket' was almost ready for her MOT, the only thing I wanted to do was make sure that it was sparkling clean first. I think you learn a lot about a car during washing and polishing, you get to see all of the blemishes, dents and scratches and make a mental picture of where they are so you know if there is any new defects (Unless this is just me who does this :confused:) anyway the Brilliant Black paintwork responded beautifully to a little TLC and a lot of Auto Glym Super Resin Polish, the interior was cleaned fully, leather seats treated, I even used the hoover, much to the wife surprise, to clean out all off the carpets ready for my red car mats, I have added some photos, as you can see this is before the roof was addressed..... plus look at my Audi Gekco :D
 

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THE MOT

This is going to be a short and sweet post.... IT PASSED!

One Advisory on the braking performance, however, the tester said it was to be expected after 3 years of sitting.
 
The Roof Part 1

So after getting the all important MOT the car went back into the garage so that we could start on the roof. Now we already had a piece of black gloss perspex that had been cut to size when the car was initially retired to the garage 3 years ago, this had just never been bonded to the car as my Grandfather-in-Law either didn't have the time or had lost interest by this point. Anyway, we checked that the piece was the correct size and, trimmed a little off each side to make it a snug fit. This is where the tricky part came it, what were we going to use to stick the perspex down, the glossy texture makes it a difficult material for any glue to adhere to and the contours of the A2's roof line are challenging to say the least. I went to a local DIY store and told them the application I wanted the adhesive for, he immediately suggested 'Strong Stuff' sealant adhesive, it apparently can adhere to any surface including mirrors! I took a tub of tube of that for £10! :eek:

We generously applied the glue to the roof and offered up the perspex replacement piece, we secured it in place with ratchets straps and 10Kg weights and left the roof for a week to dry.

After 1 week we removed the ratchet straps and weights to have a look at the roof, it look fantastic even though I do say so myself, you couldn't really tell the difference between the glass and the perspex. I used multi-purpose black silicone to seal around the edges and gave it another week for everything to set.

Another week passed and 'The Pocket Rocket' was finally ready to hit to road after 3 years, restored back to her former glory!

I have attached some photos, one of the roof piece and one of the car in the garage waiting patiently to get onto the open road!
 

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:(DOOM AND GLOOM:(

The A2 was brought out of the garage on possibly the hottest day of the year so far, the temperature was around 32°C on the Saturday that it was moved to my house and parked in the drive. We all went out shopping for a few hours and I brought some beers so I could celebrate the Audi finally getting on the road, however, when I returned triumphant fro shopping I found that the new roof section had lifted due to the heat, it looks like the perspex had expanded, hit both sides of the roof and consequently lifted the middle section. There is no photos of this guys because quite frankly I was too annoyed and upset to take any, matters weren't helped by my neighbour pointing and laughing asking if it was an air scoop!

Looks like it was back to the drawing board.....
 
Not that odd for an A2 with opensky and no aircon, particularly on pre 2002 A2's where the deal for metallic paint and aircon for £550 was not in place. My TDI is a 2001MY with opensky but no aircon (climate)

My A2 is a 52 plate so late 2002, I wonder why the original owner had the leather seats and OSS fitted but not the Air-conditioning and metallic paint. I mentioned this as Rob from WOM Automotive said that he doesn't deal with many A2's that don't have Air conditioning, if I was buying the car I would have definitely payed the £550, I imagine it's a splash in the ocean compared to the seats and OSS.
 
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My A2 is a 52 plate so late 2002, I wonder why the original owner had the leather seats and OSS fitted but not the Air-conditioning and metallic paint. I mentioned this as Rob from WOM Automotive said that he doesn't deal with many A2's that don't have Air conditioning, if I was buying the car I would have definitely payed the £550, I imagine it's a splash in the ocean compared to the seats and OSS.

Mine was registered to Hull Audi and I assume was a demonstrator for the first 6 months of its life. As such the dealer would add the waw factor options i.e. Open sky but I guess climate would not be 'in your face' if you had the car for 24 hours or a quick drive. At the end of its use as a demonstrator is needs to be sold at a reduced price and more extra the higher the price


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
The Roof Part 2

After the incendent with the roof I started to think of a better material to use for the roof section, as I said to my neighbor it wasn't a failure, I had just found a way not to fix the roof :D

The decision became a little more urgent when I found that the car leaked like a sieve without anything on the roof, I was talking about it to my neighbor and he said that he had something that might be suitable as a temporary fix to keep the water out while a more permanent solution was thought up, at this point I was taking any suggestions as I was thinking of going down the route of taping some pond liner around the roof section.

He brought over a piece of 3mm thick Matt black corrugated plastic sheeting, it's the type off stuff that is used for under floor protection, it's durable, flexible and most importantly water proof. I used the original perspex template to cut out a new section using the corrugated plastic sheeting, to adhere this to the roof I used some industrial waterproof double sided tape, I was told that this stuff was strong but I wasn't aware of how good it was!

We offered the tape covered piece up to the roof of the car and applied pressure to stick it down and boy did it stick, instant strong adhesion, there was a couple of places where there was a crease in the plastic sheeting however this couldnt be helped due to the contours of the roof it's hard to get anything 100%

Once applied I generously sealed around all of the edges with silicone sealant and gave this 24 hours to fully cure. The roof didn't look to bad at all to be honest, it wasnt a factory fresh look by any means but hopefully it was waterproof. To improve the astethics of the new piece I got some gloss black vinyl wrap and covered the piece, this was tricky as again it was something that was tried for the first time on this project, I figured I was really good at getting phone screen protectors fitting without any bubbles so it was just like this on a major scale.

Have a look at the photos added and see what you guys think.
 

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The Alloys

So I decided that I wanted to fit some bigger alloys onto my A2 to improve its stance, I got a set of alloys from a member who was breaking an A2 one Saturday morning and fitted them to the car on the afternoon, immediately it transformed the stance making the car look meaner and as if it would grip to any road. The alloys were 16" with 205/50/R16 tyres, they filled the wheel arches as can be seen from the pictures attached. On my first journey with the new alloys on I went out with my sat nav to see what the speed difference was at 30mph the sat nav was reading 29mph so it was close but legal.

After driving around for a few days I gave one of my work colleagues a lift home, this was the first time 'The Pocket Rocket' had taken a passenger under my ownership, I was beaming from ear to ear showing off my new motor and what it could do, however, I kept hearing a strange noise from the rear of the car, under further inspection it was the rear tyres rubbing on the rear wheel arches :( gutted!

After a few posts one here we narrowed it down to be the rear bottom spring seats that were missing, to be on the safe side I put the original 15" alloys back onto the car as I didn't want to risk damaging the A2....
 

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The Cam Belt

So seen as 'The Pocket Rocket' was officially on the road, I decided it was time to get the cam belt done, the car has done 174,300 miles with only one cam belt change at 100 miles and that was 6 years ago :eek: so it was definitely due. Thanks to a recommendation from a few of you on here I got in touch with WOM Automotive as I was told that they were the go to place for A2's in the UK. Cam belt was booked in and I also asked Rob and Marcus to replace the rear bottom springs seats too so that it was sorted ready for the 16" alloys to go back on. I left the car with them on a Tuesday evening and picked it up Friday afternoon, there was no real complications apart from the wrong aux belt been ordered (My Fault) I thought that the car had air-conditioning due to it having a ECON button, had no idea this was for the Webasto heater on my A2 oops :eek:

Had the cam belt, tensioner, water pump and aux belt fitted.

The rear spring seats had also been fitted, however, this didn't do anything for the ride height really as it looks like the car has either the incorrect rear springs or some cheap and nasty aftermarket ones that are too small, so it looks like the 16" alloys wouldn't be going back on yet.... at least not until I had some more money to get some decent rear springs
 
The Gearbox

I started to notices after I had the cam belt done that if I changed from 2nd gear to 3rd gear quickly my A2 crunched into gear, at first I though I was not pressing the clutch down far enough causing the gears to catch, however the more I drove the car I noticed it seemed to only happen if I changed up through the gears quickly. If you depressed the clutch and gently selected 3rd gear it went in fine without any issues. I assumed that this problem was because the 3rd gear syncromesh was worn after completing 174,400 miles.

I hate crunching the gears as I get paranoid about all the metal shards that will be circulating around the gearbox no doubt doing it no good, this issue kept catching me out when I least expected it!

I decided that I wanted to try to change the gearbox oil to see if this would alleviate the problem somewhat I got some Castrol Syntrans GL-4 Fully Synthetic 75W90 Gear Oil from eBay and took the car to WOM Automotive to have the oil swapped, I was going to do it myself but didn't feel like rolling around under the car on Axel stands and a jack, ramps were definitely the way forward so the car went to the garage and the oil was drained and replenished in no time, the old gear oil after 174,400 miles was like Guinness in colour, the new oil that went in was like Champagne.

As soon as I got the car onto an open road I automatically noticed a difference, there was no notchy feeling to the gear change and the selection of 3rd gear although a little daunting to start with has been fine since the oil I haven't had a single crunch up to yet, touch wood!
 

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Low Operating Temperature

Okay so I moved into the next issue with 'The Pocket Rocket' it ran cold, I mean as cold as ice, after a good 40 minute run you would be lucky if you got the temp up to 70°C which is low considering the operating temp is meant to be 90°C. This wasn't helped by the fact that the radiator fan was running all the time, I knew I needed to get it done, I originally looked at doing this job myself but after looking where the thermostat was I decided to leave it to the experts, however, there was a few other faults that I wanted sorting so I didn't book it into WOM Automotive initially.
 
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