Today I.....

Today I had two mini moments of joy:

Firstly, with my wife returning from Epping in Essex back to Devon in the car, she called me when nearly home asking if I wanted her to fuel it while she was out, as it had done over 500 miles on the current tank. When I asked what range was showing on the dash she said it still had 200 miles left showing, so I reassured her it had plenty and she needn’t bother - this earned the car a rare comment of overt praise - “gosh, this car is so economical!”

Yes love, yes it is.

Then this evening I came back to the car in the supermarket car park in Honiton to find a silver Y reg 1.4 SE in excellent condition parked next to it - I exchanged a knowing nod with the owner when he returned a moment later.
 
Started my FSI engine & gearbox removal today ….. going well, but slowly does it, as there are a lot of things to unhook. Taken 3hrs to get the bumper & some other bits off & most electrical connectors undone. Hope to get the entire front panel off tomorrow, drain the liquids (a/c already de-gassed by local garage) & start attacking the mechanical connections.

The car runs great & has just passed its annual tech control without any problems, but l want to do the cam belts, waterpump, death pipe, flaps check & cleaning, new clutch, & sort out a small oil leak around the front cover/sump joint area & just seems much easier to do it on my workbench. Time will tell if its the right decision !

I’m making plenty of notes & photographs to help remembering how it all goes back together 😱
 

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Speaking of reasons to like the A2, the "new" rims came with chunky junk tyres on them so I went to the shop with 4 complete wheels and another 4 tyres. With the seats folded up I got all that stuff in the car quite easily.
dj_efk said:
Centre caps are available brand new from Audi Tradition. I bought a set to keep in stock for when they are NLA and I need some!
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Oh, of course. Amusingly they seem to cost more than what I paid for the rims, but I guess that's why the rims were such a good deal...
 
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Hoomart said:
Started my FSI engine & gearbox removal today ….. going well, but slowly does it, as there are a lot of things to unhook. Taken 3hrs to get the bumper & some other bits off & most electrical connectors undone. Hope to get the entire front panel off tomorrow, drain the liquids (a/c already de-gassed by local garage) & start attacking the mechanical connections.

The car runs great & has just passed its annual tech control without any problems, but l want to do the cam belts, waterpump, death pipe, flaps check & cleaning, new clutch, & sort out a small oil leak around the front cover/sump joint area & just seems much easier to do it on my workbench. Time will tell if its the right decision !

I’m making plenty of notes & photographs to help remembering how it all goes back together 😱
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Day 2 & the front panel is off , coolant drained & ready to attack the bolts holding the lump into the chassis. Slowly does it, but so far nothing too bad, just lots of clips holding the loom in place & all those bl00dy electrical connectors & almost every one detaches in a different way & 20 year old plastic is a bit brittle, to say the least ; only broken 2 so far.
 

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Yesterday I fitted my new number plates, into my A2OC surrounds. The surrounds really lift the car, and they’re excellent quality, German made (Helmut Seitz), lots of holes to fit your screws wherever you want and the number plates clip in really neatly. Thank you @FinallyFiona, and to anyone who’s not got them yet, get your order in now!
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Unfortunately, I ended up making an awful bodge job of the rear plate. The old plate was glued in place with the strongest glue known to mankind and no amount of levering with a screwdriver or chisel would shift it (was worrying about damaging the bodywork) and heating it up didn’t do much to soften the adhesive either. So I ended up mounting the surround over the old plate. It looks ok straight on but unfortunately the edge of the old plate shows at other angles 😕. If anyone has any bright ideas how to remove the old plate I’d be curious to hear!
 
Malcyb said:
Thank you @FinallyFiona, and to anyone who’s not got them yet, get your order in now!
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Glad you're enjoying your number plate surrounds Malcolm. :)

Unfortunately, those were one of the last pairs from the stocks and they're now sold out. With the drop off in Shop sales over the last few years and because they are an expensive and bulky item to keep stocks of, the Club's position is that we will order more, but only when demand is going to be sufficient to sell most of them straight away. As such, there is now a registration thread for people to add their interest for a future purchase.
 
Malcyb said:
Yesterday I fitted my new number plates, into my A2OC surrounds. The surrounds really lift the car, and they’re excellent quality, German made (Helmut Seitz), lots of holes to fit your screws wherever you want and the number plates clip in really neatly. Thank you @FinallyFiona, and to anyone who’s not got them yet, get your order in now!
View attachment 132154

Unfortunately, I ended up making an awful bodge job of the rear plate. The old plate was glued in place with the strongest glue known to mankind and no amount of levering with a screwdriver or chisel would shift it (was worrying about damaging the bodywork) and heating it up didn’t do much to soften the adhesive either. So I ended up mounting the surround over the old plate. It looks ok straight on but unfortunately the edge of the old plate shows at other angles . If anyone has any bright ideas how to remove the old plate I’d be curious to hear!
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Maybe swap the rear door trim panel, to which the number plate fits? Either body colour or black would look good, and you can mount the number plate holder directly to it.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
 
Jellybean said:
Maybe swap the rear door trim panel, to which the number plate fits? Either body colour or black would look good, and you can mount the number plate holder directly to it.

Sent from my SM-N960F using Tapatalk
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Sorry, not quite following you. The plate is stuck fast to the tailgate, can the bottom part of the tailgate, below the seam just above the number plate recess, be easily replaced? Otherwise it would require a whole new tailgate which would be very drastic.
 
Malcyb said:
Sorry, not quite following you. The plate is stuck fast to the tailgate, can the bottom part of the tailgate, below the seam just above the number plate recess, be easily replaced? Otherwise it would require a whole new tailgate which would be very drastic.
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Yes, the panel between the rear lights can be replaced.

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Jellybean said:
Yes, the panel between the rear lights can be replaced.

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Do you know if there is a “how to” covering this? I found a thread referring to it which got as far as how to remove the interior trim (which I’ve done before, horrible job!) but after that I don’t know…
 
Malcyb said:
Yesterday I fitted my new number plates, into my A2OC surrounds. The surrounds really lift the car, and they’re excellent quality, German made (Helmut Seitz), lots of holes to fit your screws wherever you want and the number plates clip in really neatly. Thank you @FinallyFiona, and to anyone who’s not got them yet, get your order in now!
View attachment 132154

Unfortunately, I ended up making an awful bodge job of the rear plate. The old plate was glued in place with the strongest glue known to mankind and no amount of levering with a screwdriver or chisel would shift it (was worrying about damaging the bodywork) and heating it up didn’t do much to soften the adhesive either. So I ended up mounting the surround over the old plate. It looks ok straight on but unfortunately the edge of the old plate shows at other angles 😕. If anyone has any bright ideas how to remove the old plate I’d be curious to hear!
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Hi Malcyb. I am wondering if your rear plate has been stuck on using silicone sealant. If you could post a picture of the plate and give a rough idea of how much clearance there is between the plate and bodywork it would give people a better idea of what might work to remove it without damaging the bodywork. My VX rear plate was bodged on using this method and though the plate eventually came off (presumably because the plate was not cleaned thoroughly before sticking it down) just through brute force, the silicone remained on the bodywork and would not shift without wrecking the paint. Eventually i came up with a solution using a razor plane, silicone sealant remover and a lot of patience and the whole area was free of silicone and suffered only minor scratches from the early efforts to find a solution. If you have reasonable clearance between the plate and body work it would be possible to use a small Dremel type cutting disc to cut a small section free of the old plate that would be easier to prise off so at least you can see what you are dealing with and if it works on that piece you could probably remove the rest of the plate like that.
Dave C
 
bluesunbeam said:
Hi Malcyb. I am wondering if your rear plate has been stuck on using silicone sealant. If you could post a picture of the plate and give a rough idea of how much clearance there is between the plate and bodywork it would give people a better idea of what might work to remove it without damaging the bodywork. My VX rear plate was bodged on using this method and though the plate eventually came off (presumably because the plate was not cleaned thoroughly before sticking it down) just through brute force, the silicone remained on the bodywork and would not shift without wrecking the paint. Eventually i came up with a solution using a razor plane, silicone sealant remover and a lot of patience and the whole area was free of silicone and suffered only minor scratches from the early efforts to find a solution. If you have reasonable clearance between the plate and body work it would be possible to use a small Dremel type cutting disc to cut a small section free of the old plate that would be easier to prise off so at least you can see what you are dealing with and if it works on that piece you could probably remove the rest of the plate like that.
Dave C
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Sorry I don’t have a photo. Whatever the adhesive is, it seems to cover almost the entirety of the plate and there’s negligible gap between the back of the plate and the body panel. The side edges of the plate weren’t completely stuck down so I could bend the plate back with a screwdriver and apply force to peel the plate away from the panel however it didn’t want to know. I could have applied more force but would have started to damage the plastic panel. At the bottom of the plate I couldn’t slide anything under it at all. I think even a competent DIYer (which I’m not really!) wouldn’t be able to get a cutting disk behind it.

That said, it might just be worth trying to slice through the left and right edges of the plate with a dremel. I don’t think it would help to remove the plate but there would be less yellow visible behind the new surround.
 
Malcyb said:
Sorry I don’t have a photo. Whatever the adhesive is, it seems to cover almost the entirety of the plate and there’s negligible gap between the back of the plate and the body panel. The side edges of the plate weren’t completely stuck down so I could bend the plate back with a screwdriver and apply force to peel the plate away from the panel however it didn’t want to know. I could have applied more force but would have started to damage the plastic panel. At the bottom of the plate I couldn’t slide anything under it at all. I think even a competent DIYer (which I’m not really!) wouldn’t be able to get a cutting disk behind it.
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Try with a thin metal scraper to get it started then slowly tap in wedges the further you go along. I think once you get it started it will quickly get a lot easier.
 
Malcyb said:
Do you know if there is a “how to” covering this? I found a thread referring to it which got as far as how to remove the interior trim (which I’ve done before, horrible job!) but after that I don’t know…
Click to expand...
Try this.

Boot Lid Panel Removal

Hi All. I am in the middle of removing the exterior rear boot lid panel to replace the rear number plate lights and I have got as far as breaking the old light lens screws off in the housings. They were WELL rusted. Fortunately I have already got hold of some new light housings and lenses (just...
r.tapatalk.com r.tapatalk.com
Its years since I changed one, and cannot remember how to do it!

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ICowie said:
Try with a thin metal scraper to get it started then slowly tap in wedges the further you go along. I think once you get it started it will quickly get a lot easier.
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I think that the problem will be that the panel where the plate sits is recessed, so it’s not possible to get any long blade into the side without rubbing against the panel and making an awful mess of it, or the wedge will dig into the panel behind the plate and start to damage it there. I think what you’re suggesting might work only if it were a completely flat surface so you can apply force completely parallel to the panel behind it.
 
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