Progress on this has continued to be slow but steady… long gone are the days when I got to spend all my evenings and weekends playing with old cars!
The front subframe is now off and away to get blasted and painted (along with the front springs). It cleaned up well with the needle gun and looks solid enough, but we will see if the blasting picks up any issues.
(Apologies for the weeds; I haven’t had time to get the roundup out yet!)
I have also now got a full set of Bilstein B6s, and the brakes are finally on their way back from Bigg Red. I also got that last bush that I wrecked replaced and pressed into the upper link, so these are all ready to go.
So I am now looking at the final(ish) items I still need to get for the rebuild. There are a few mounts/bushes and bolts which I am unsure whether or not are worth replacing, and thought I would see if anyone had any thoughts on this 😊 (for reference, the car has about 123K on it, and I assume these are all still original bits).
• Top mounts and ‘rubber buffers’ for both the front and rear shocks. These all seem in pretty good condition, but I obviously don’t have new ones to compare with. Are these typically worth replacing? Front mounts seem pretty cheap and available, but rears might be hard to get/expensive? The buffers look fairly cheap.
• Engine and gearbox mounts. How do you know if these need replaced? They look intact, but are reasonably ‘flexible’. Do they typically ‘go’? Availability seems to be questionable.
• Subframe bolts – do people typically use new ones when refitting? Are these stretch bolts? An online search suggests they are not particularly available, but I have not spoken with Audi/TPS yet.
I have also been wondering if there is anything else that I should be looking at while the subframe and front suspension is all out? I am changing both the output seals as they are both leaking (the left side badly). Is there any known issues that are worth addressing?
Thnaks, and sorry for all the questions!