Today I.....

It was very stormy in the Home Counties this afternoon. We had marble-sized hail :eek: mainly delivered horizontally. Several close lightning strikes. Luckily my FSI was tucked up in my garage and my TDI (hopefully!) tucked up 120 miles away at WOM. Looking at my Volvo that took the brunt of everything that Nature threw at it, we appear to have got away with it though. Any larger hail and I'd have been expecting chipped paint.
 
Today I changed my thermostat (fsi) or rather I helped a friend - yuk. I think a flush through is called for next be next.
Also took the opportunity to check my lower suspension arms. I was pleasantly surprised they were better than expected, over 19 years old now
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Not too bad - but given there's fairly deep surface rust on the outside and the damage to the arms will be in the internal box sections where you cannot easily look for it, I'd replace out of caution.
 
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They don’t look to bad to be honest BUT they rot from the inside out so it’s very difficult to asses true condition of corrosion by simply looking at the outside appearance. If you have an endoscope have a look inside the arms
If they look ok on the inside get some rust prevention into the inside area. Something that doesn’t set and will creep into the rust that is there. Dinitrole (will not be the correct spelling) is great stuff

Paul
 
Those arms are just about full life and need changing. Not worth the effort now at this age to try any preventative measures, although certainly worth it on new arms and periodically afterwards.
 
dj_efk said:
Yesterday:

1) (pertinent to the above) I tried to do an oil change on my brother-in-law's 2009 Fiesta 1.6 diesel but didn't have a 21mm socket or spanner to hand to undo the sump plug - although luckily I did have a 27mm oil filter socket! - So I used my at-the-time-of-purchase unavailable in the UK Mityvac fluid pump and extractor that I had imported from the US some time ago to extractor the warm oil via the dipstick instead. I assume this is how many Audi dealers would have changed the oil on our cars as I understand the PD TDI lends itself to this method well?

Anyway, I must say, I'm a convert: It extracted near-enough the full amount of oil I was expecting it to and it was quick and of course very clean - to the point where an oil & filter change is now a pleasurable 15/20 minute job - plus on the A2 TDI you could use it to suck out the oil in the filter / cooler housing. I can't wait to try it on Audrey when the next change comes up - I would probably alternate between changing via this method and doing it the proper way via the sump every 6-8000 miles just to be sure. Thoughts welcome on all of this.


2) I then spent an enjoyable hour going through the mountain of paperwork / service history that came with Akoya: It was even more of a delight to discover that once I'd pieced it all together via a spreadsheet (which I do for all of my cars to track work done and costs), I have the full service history from new for the car; which at 191k miles, you can imagine how comprehensive that is! The picture doesn't really do justice to how thick that pile of paper work is. I also went through all of @PaulA2 's posts that I could tell referred to Akoya (as he had more than one A2 most of the time) and was able to further add to the list of works done to complete the picture.

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If I do come to sell this car then obviously this effort would have been well worth it.
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Did you ever try using the oil extractor pump on your A2. I'm thinking of trying it myself.
 
So I cleaned „+” connection on the generator and starter motor … This rust on the back of the alternator worries me (I hope that it all come from this nut)

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also cleaned „-„ connection in A pillar
(I like that there is no rust here :p)

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Alfie Noakes said:
Did you ever try using the oil extractor pump on your A2. I'm thinking of trying it myself.
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Yes I did Alfie with excellent results - I now do it routinely every other change. It gets almost everything out of the sump and as my post surmises, it does indeed allow efficient extraction of the oil in the cooler housing when changing the filter.
 
So today I …

Well actually, last year I managed to get hold of the required parts for the retro fitting of the boot mounted CD auto changer in to Basil , my trusty steed , as part of the preparation for a very long road trip to the south of France


Sunday just past ,i was up a sparrows fart o’clock to make the journey up to @timmus for the fitting , I had though this would be within my hamfisted skill set , to fit , but time was pressing , and having used @timmus , services more than a couple of times , thought , leave it to the expert ..

Ahead of making the journey , Tom reviewed the parts I had collected ,and confirm “game on “for the long planned upgrade

Had a cracking drive up ,using the MYP gearbox box the best part of 100 miles to get just over 83mpg, and was warmly greeted on arrival by Tom
Tom then cracking on at a pace , a couple of hours later , the set up was tested , and found to be in fine order .
Thashed back home with 6 CD’s the cassette changer , and loving the chance to listen to long forgotten CD’s , while mentally planning the journey to the south of France later in the year.

for those that have not used @timmus , your missing a real treat !
 

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Today, I saw this it’s kind of A2 shape from the scuttle back. The issue most of the weight being in front of the rear wheel wouldn’t be an issue as it’s so light weight. I wondered again about an A2 camping trailer…..
 

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Just done a 250 mile round trip in Audrey, was in a bit of a hurry so let's just say Audrey still did the journey cruising over the national limit by a small margin and still got 60mpg.

I saw one 05 registered Akoya silver A2 coming the other way around Sparkford / Ilminster - plus the same 03 1.4 petrol with club number plate surrounds at Harwell Science Park in Oxfordshire, parked outside Astroscale's office there. I do wonder if the owner is a member here.
 
Spent my off days fitting a new coolant temp sensor, very tight and fiddly on an FSI and then cleaning up and fitting some nice sports wheels bought from a member. Before and after, I'm sure you're all familiar, but I do think it looks far better and evens out the aesthetics.
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Unfortunately at least one is buckled so will need repair, hmm!
 
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