DJ's adventures in A2 land

I was talking timmus through the fitment
It is a tight fit because the A6 c5 arm rest stem is offset to the drivers side as against the A1 armrest which has a centre stem
This makes the fit in the ‘coin holder’ space snug to say the least
Then add to the mix that the bracket is mounted to a part of the floor pan which was not intended to have an arm rest mounted to it and then add into the mix that the centre tunnel plastics are some what free floating by about 6mm and there are a lot of variables that need to be ‘flexed’ to get a good looking ‘factory finish’ fit
It is however very possible to do so just a little time consuming especially the first time you are doing it

Paul


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
depronman said:
I was talking timmus through the fitment
It is a tight fit because the A6 c5 arm rest stem is offset to the drivers side as against the A1 armrest which has a centre stem
This makes the fit in the ‘coin holder’ space snug to say the least
Then add to the mix that the bracket is mounted to a part of the floor pan which was not intended to have an arm rest mounted to it and then add into the mix that the centre tunnel plastics are some what free floating by about 6mm and there are a lot of variables that need to be ‘flexed’ to get a good looking ‘factory finish’ fit
It is however very possible to do so just a little time consuming especially the first time you are doing it

Paul


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Yeah its why I thought it was a MK4 Golf type one, as that (can be) centrally mounted into a similar slot and has plastic all the way down to the bottom!
 
A few pics taken today after I finished freeing off the stick rear calliper. Now that half the car has been resprayed and the whole thing polished up to a brilliant, uniform shine, it looks like a two year old car, not one approaching its 18th birthday!



Now sporting rear sensors - I hadn’t realised this system adjusts when it starts to beep according to how quickly you’re reversing up to an object! Clever Audi.

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Another view of the cabin as it stands - just needs a good valet before being basically finished…
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… other than I need a couple of replacement door cards on account of slight areas of damage:
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Satisfying to reach a point where it’s only marks like this letting the general standard down!

Here’s what the ColourDIS greets me with when I switch the ignition on - zoom in!:
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Finally, here’s a view of my phone cradle and charger, all neatly wired in (again - really needs a valet!):
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The dashcam is also in and working well - this was hardwired to a permanent live so that I could use the parking mode function - whereby the camera sleeps but never switches off completely when the car is parked - the idea being that if someone knocks into it when parked it will instantly wake and start recording.

While the car was with Tom I asked him to fit the twin boot lamp upgrade and theres undoubtedly more that I forget at present! The whole thing is now my perfect A2 and I’m very very happy - Can I just say again a personal thank you to @timmus Tom for the incredible standard of workmanship - the car really does feel a decade or so newer than it really is now with everything that’s been done to it, yet it doesn’t feel at all modified, it actually just amazingly feels perfectly original, like a “what might have been” if in some alternative reality Audi carried on making the A2 until 2014 rather than 2004, and just kept developing the mechanicals and adding creature comforts to keep pace with the times, rather than changing the body / shape!

Back to that calliper and the handbrake dragging on one wheel - thanks to @Clackers Andy for his suggestion in this thread to thoroughly brush down and lubricate the partially seized calliper pivot on the passenger rear wheel - this has got it working nicely with only a minimal amount of drag now to address once I get hold of a 7mm Allen key to get the calliper itself off. Interestingly, the handbrake - which has always felt “dead” / not connected to anything for the first few inches of travel has now been transformed - it’s now positive feeling and powerful, so I believe the pivot has always been partially seized and the car’s handbrake being yanked harder than usual when being loaded on the transporter for its Lancaster trip must have moved it further to the “on” position where it got stuck. I’m hopeful I’ll gain a little extra mpgs now it’s working correctly.
 
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dj_efk said:
A few pics taken today after I finished freeing off the stick rear calliper. Now that half the car has been resprayed and the whole thing polished up to a brilliant, uniform shine, it looks like a two year old car, not one approaching its 18th birthday!

View attachment 94082

Now sporting rear sensors - I hadn’t realised this system adjusts when it starts to beep according to how quickly you’re reversing up to an object! Clever Audi.
index.php


Another view of the cabin as it stands - just needs a good valet before being basically finished…
View attachment 94083

… other than I need a couple of replacement door cards on account of slight areas of damage:
View attachment 94088

View attachment 94089

Satisfying to reach a point where it’s only marks like this letting the general standard down!

Here’s what the ColourDIS greets me with when I switch the ignition on - zoom in!:
View attachment 94090

Finally, here’s a view of my phone cradle and charger, all neatly wired in (again - really needs a valet!):
View attachment 94091

The dashcam is also in and working well - this was hardwired to a permanent live so that I could use the parking mode function - whereby the camera sleeps but never switches off completely when the car is parked - the idea being that if someone knocks into it when parked it will instantly wake and start recording.

While the car was with Tom I asked him to fit the twin boot lamp upgrade and theres undoubtedly more that I forget at present! The whole thing is now my perfect A2 and I’m very very happy - Can I just say again a personal thank you to @timmus Tom for the incredible standard of workmanship - the car really does feel a decade or so newer than it really is now with everything that’s been done to it, yet it doesn’t feel at all modified, it actually just amazingly feels perfectly original, like a “what might have been” if in some alternative reality Audi carried on making the A2 until 2014 rather than 2004, and just kept developing the mechanicals and adding creature comforts to keep pace with the times, rather than changing the body / shape!

Back to that calliper and the handbrake dragging on one wheel - thanks to @Clackers Andy for the suggestion to thoroughly brush down and lubricate the partially seized calliper pivot on the passenger rear wheel - this has got it working nicely with only a minimal amount of drag now to address once I get hold of a 7mm Allen key to get the calliper itself off. Interestingly, the handbrake - which has always felt “dead” / not connected to anything for the first few inches of travel has now been transformed - it’s now positive feeling and powerful, so I believe the pivot has always been partially seized and the car’s handbrake being yanked harder than usual when being loaded on the transporter for its Lancaster trip must have moved it further to the “on” position where it got stuck. I’m hopeful I’ll gain a little extra mpgs now it’s working correctly.
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Looking very good David. All you need are the platinum seats and the dream is complete. 😉
 
Well it’s been an action packed summer for Audrey - to my mild horror the oil service reminder pinged up during this week which means the car has done 9000 miles on one change! Luckily most of that mileage has been on long motorway journeys at 65-75mph in sixth gear so I doubt there’s been any adverse wear. Current mileage is around 152k.

Now that the car is up to the spec I want I’ve really enjoyed those journeys which have been in supreme comfort and averaging around 63mpg without really trying or 66-69mpg when I am. There were some issues but these were addressed via much wielding of the credit card as I didn’t have the time to DIY.

For example, the brakes started sticking and also squealing like I demented pig, so I replaced them (callipers and pads all round); also the air con gave up the ghost thanks to a cracked condenser / radiator - causing me to drive hundreds of miles on the motorway with the windows open in a feeble attempt to get the temperature in the cabin down during the heatwave, so I replaced it; then finally testing of the system upon completion of the work revealed the root cause of over-pressurisation because of a duff fan controller, so I replaced it. Then in the continued hot weather the hard-wired Nextbase dash cam mount’s sticky pad quite literally melted! This was replaced but now the camera won’t power on so I’m having to send that off to Nextbase to investigate - I’m a little annoyed about that as there’s a lot of bad press around Nextbase product quality but I decided to trust the Which? reviews. Ho hum.

Also - The failing camshaft position sensor has finally given up, resulting in prolonged hot cranking before starting and on two occasions it’s misfired and cut out; although always restarted straight away. I did attempt to fit the replacement I thought I had in stock following the oil and filter change but was thwarted as per THIS POST, so now the car is currently is currently in bits with the bonnet placed on in the pouring rain ready for me to retrieve the sensor bolt and put it back together tomorrow during my lunch break.

Speaking of the oil change, I decided to use my extractor by poking the hose in the dipstick tube - and then undo the sump plug to see what remained as an experiment - there was about 100ml left that came out, so this method would be fine as an interim change if you were short on time and not doing big mileages between changes. I also noted there was almost no swarf present on the magnetic plug and that the extractor was ideal for sucking out the residual oil in the filter housing.

Jobs to do include replacing a dead headlight height adjustment motor and swapping in the Philips Racing Vision +200 bulbs to replace the Osram Nightbreaker 150s currently in there, plus swapping those door cards out for good used and then adjusting the auto headlamp switch so it’s not so deeply recessed. Beyond this I’ll also send off my NOS turbo and manifold unit to get heat coated ready to install once my turbo goes bang, or els at the next cambelt service.

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Right, as per the today thread, in a VERY lucky twist the bolt for the cam sensor was successfully fished out from the depths of the lower cambelt cover eventually. The car is now all back together temporarily while I wait for the correct replacement position sensor (although I did disconnect it’s electrical connection above the oil filter housing and give it a wistful blast of compressed air inside before reconnecting - you never know!) and filled with fresh oil ready for duty. I checked the air filter while the under tray was off as I don’t quite believe they can really go for the Audi-specified mileage before being changed and yet not affecting performance, but sure enough it still looked almost new after 9000 miles once the loose debris had been shaken off it.

One thought that occurred after I posted the above re: using the extractor to change the oil: my experiment was null and void as I had the car up on wooden blocks at the front, meaning the sump was tilted away from the dipstick hole - I’ll repeat the experiment with the car on the flat at the next change in another 8000 or so miles and see how much remains in the sump at that point too.

I need to address an engine oil leak that appears to have worsened a little since I last inspected under the car and that is coming from somewhere high up on the back of the engine, then is dripping down roughly to where the dog bone mount is. I suspect EGR or turbo - this can be cured at the same time the new turbo unit is installed, so it looks like this is now to be moved up the priority job list for 2023.
 
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dj_efk said:
Right, as per the today thread, in a VERY lucky twist the bolt for the cam sensor was successfully fished out from the depths of the lower cambelt cover eventually. The car is now all back together temporarily while I wait for the correct replacement position sensor (although I did disconnect it’s electrical connection above the oil filter housing and give it a wistful blast of compressed air inside before reconnecting - you never know!) and filled with fresh oil ready for duty. I checked the air filter while the under tray was under there as I don’t quite believe they can really go for the Audi-specified mileage before being changed but sure enough it still looked almost new after 9000 miles once the loose debris had been shaken off it.

One thought that occurred after I posted the above re: using the extractor to change the oil: my experiment was null and void as I had the car up on wooden blocks at the front, meaning the sump was tilted away from the dipstick hole - I’ll repeat the experiment with the car on the flat at the next change in another 8000 or so miles and see how much remains in the sump at that point too.

I need to address an engine oil leak that appears to have worsened a little since I last inspected under the car and that is coming from somewhere high up on the back of the engine, then is dripping down roughly to where the dog bone mount is. I suspect EGR or turbo - this can be cured at the same time the new turbo unit is installed, so it looks like this is now to be moved up the priority job list for 2023.
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Good work! The oil leak you describe is same as mine. It turned out to be two things, so far!!, one was the seals around the egr and inlet pipes, asv and spacer etc. The other the corner of the cam cover classic. I also had leaking turbo pipes on the other side aswell!!
 
Yes I’m sure I have multiple leaks.

I think I’ll put the car into my preferred workshop here and ask them to go right through it and clean out the EGR etc. when they change the turbo unit - I believe in doing it once, doing it right. Then it should be good for another 150k miles!

UPDATE: Thought for a while that disturbing the cam sensor and its wiring plug’s connections had actually fixed the fault as no fault code after 10 miles and several hot starts - Alas no, the code has just reappeared so I am going to have to change the sensor after all!

Also I got back to find oil spots all over my drive and an alarmingly free-flowing drip of oil coming off the engine undertray - luckily this just turned out to be the filter cap not done up tight enough to make a seal, so no harm done other than the best part of a litre of oil wasted….
 
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A brief update from earlier this week:

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A fairly clean pass as I’d expect with all the recent brake work, as everything else is in fine fettle that could get in the way. At some point I will have to address the advanced surface corrosion on both front and rear subframes, perhaps a job for the warmer weather next year when my workshop is free of builder's detritus and organised. The garage replaced the duff headlamp height adjuster motor FOC too which I was impressed with.

I am puzzled by the emissions print-out however as I was expecting to see CO2 and particle readings, not "gas blast measurement"? Can anyone explain what this means? Regardless, one can surmise that Audrey's engine is not overly polluting - This seems to validate that running it almost exclusively on supermarket fuel but with the Millers additive is not affecting anything adversly in this regard. Having said that, I saw @philward 's copy of his emissions print-out and his values are signifcantly lower, almost to the point of not registering! I'm not sure what to make of that.

One point to note - I added the MOT to the car's file and noted that in fact the car had done only 7500 miles since the last oil change - I must have adjusted the mileage in CDIS accordingly from the default value of 9000 - which made me feel much better about that!

@Dave M kindly provided a known-good camshaft position sensor for the cost of postage (new ones are £90!), so thanks to him, I'll see if I can find the time to fit that this weekend as predictably, the wistful blowing out of the electrical connector for it did not yield a magic fix, not surprisingly. Once done the car will be in fine fettle again and ready to whisk me off to Cambridge and back from here in Devon in confidence for some upcoming work trips - I shall be looking to beat my tank average PB again!

I seem to have damaged my PC which now cannot seem to boot up (just gives me the blue screen of death and the automatic repair fails to fix the issue) which might mean my precious spreadsheets containing both our vehicles' service histories is at risk! Hopefully I can work through that one.
 
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Following on from THIS, a new starter was procured and fitted by my preferred garage in Chard within 48 hours, also while the car was in Andy the engine covers off I got them to fit the known-good camshaft position sensor kindly donated by @Dave M - I now have full confidence the issue isn’t going to reoccur and so full service isn’t resumed just in time for another 150 mile dash to Maidenhead later today.

Fuel prices are forecast to rise sharply after this weekend thanks to OPEC being greedy and reducing production so the A2’s excellent fuel economy once again becomes acutely relevant: I have 50 miles range flashing up so will be brimming the tank with Millers + Tesco before I set off - and will then be looking to beat my PB tank average by limiting myself to 63mph cruising as the car does over 70mpg in top at this speed - the journey time won’t be materially much longer than at the usual 65-70mph speed, which normally yields 65mpg+.

EDIT: just arrived, didn’t want to waste time detouring to Tesco in the end and luckily Shell in Ilchester was “only” £1.81 so happily went with that and got 43l into a supposed 42l tank with 30 miles range left on the clock! Traffic was pretty heavy but even so, looking promising:

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Quick update to this thread:

As Audrey has done a number of short journeys interspersed with very long ones since it was last done, I performed a 6000 mile oil change in a leisurely 45 minutes start to stop thanks to my extractor via the dipstick tube. 4.5l came out which is about right isn’t it? I had previously topped it up with a bottle of the Comma engine flush (the one that’s just oil with additives instead of harsh solvents) and drove the car carefully for a few miles as per the instructions to get it circulating and the oil warm.

Others I’m sure may think 6000 miles is quite a short interval but as the filters and oil were bought cheap and in bulk when on offers on eBay plus the oil never gets that hot even on the motorway I thought better safe than sorry!

I also fitted the new rubber bonnet drains procured from Audi Tradition thanks to @Rickmeister and @simufly - thanks guys!

Next job is to replace the driver’s headlamp for one procured from @jeevanjohnmenon that doesn’t have a blurred beam pattern and on which the adjuster is working correctly. I’ve booked a valeter to come later next month to give the interior a proper detail too in order to banish the winter mud.

Longer term a trip to Leighton Buzzard beckons to see @timmus next time he’s in the south, as I have an occasional fault with my colour DIS that means it needs to be reset whenever it presents itself by unplugging & plugging it back in - so far it seems to do it quarterly and luckily it’s presented no great inconvenience on 3 out of the 4 or so times it’s done it so far!

Apart from a case of a sticky handbrake (fixed by stripping and greasing the mechanisms but really the cables need replacing to really sort it), it’s otherwise very much been a case of nothing to report with Audrey - she just performs her role as work car and stand-in for when our Touran is in the garage economically and without fuss.

I’ll try to keep the updates more regular and include pictures from now on!
 
Hmm not a positive update this time folks - I was on my way back from dropping my eldest at school this morning in the Devon lanes, came round a corner at 28mph (I know as my dashcam records the speed) and a new Mini was coming down the hill the other way.

Brakes on and nothing other than the pulsing pedal - it just kept going and going! Here is the result:

Damage1.jpg
Damage2.jpg
Other party damage.jpg


As you can see - could have been far, far worse (like the damage to my pride).

When I got out I saw that the left two wheels had been on the grassy verge at the side of the lane (you can just see it in front of the bumper in the second pic - I'd reversed back at this point) and the effect was similar to braking on ice - it was scary how far the car carried on going though - I would have thought the two wheels on proper (albeit wet) tarmac would have been able to stop the car but perhaps the ABS can't apply the brakes on one side constantly whilst pumping those on the other(??)

Anyway, we swapped details and I've let my insurance company know and have already booked a repair next month: I'm kicking myself, especially as my wife had borrowed the car last week and remarked upon giving it back that the brakes are poor: She found it hard to stop when meeting a car coming the other way in a lane - When I tested them myself I couldn't activate the ABS on a dry road so they are definitely sub-par - I really should have been taking it easier on a good-as-blind bend.

Anyway, I've learned two lessons:

1) Slow down on wet country lanes
2) Sort the brakes - I have bought the following:
- New Brembo Xtra grooved discs and matching pads
- New braided flexible brake lines for the front and rear from HEL (a local firm in Exeter)
- New handbrake cables (to cure the sticking driver's side)

I'll throw all this at the car and do a brake + clutch bleed with both my extractor and with VCDS and hopefully they should be better than new.

Other than this, Audrey continues to give sterling service and is about to hit 160k miles.
 
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