Burnzybubbles A8 thread

[mcs]

I run two cars to prevent the A8 being abused in daily use from parks/traffic accidents and what not.

350 Pounds to make it right is excellent. These cars are rare here, and the parts are priced to suit. So 2,300 pounds to service my timing belt.

I say keep both if they will last

Mike

[Burnzybubbles]

It would be nice but her indoors has a say too, once I get the car finished I'll look over my finances and work out what's my best option, I don't like wrecking my A8 using it as a daily but I also don't like drying other cars as it's just not the same, 1st world issues at its best

[tc4332]

Just had a hard day in the bus ferrying students all over Manchester.
Came home to a request from management to take her to ASDA and it was a pleasure in the 8

[Burnzybubbles]

Sunday I got the replacement head cleaned right up, covered it in oil and wrapped it up to protect it whilst in storage, I just need the sundries like head gasket bolts and such like, also trying to figure out whether I risk removing the glow plugs on the right bank and have a software flash for metal plugs or find some ceramic replacements, I want to fit metal plugs for piece of mind but do I risk the chance of having to take the right back off too if one snaps? Only plus side is the plug voltage can be changed with a remap I never need an excuse

Looking forward to getting the A8 running again as it's solely missed, even the torque of the 3.0tdi is being pined after, but I'm going to do a bit a preventative maintenance on it whilst its laid up, get things ship shape for when I do start using it more frequently

Hopefully things start to happen much quicker now iv got the cupra to a standard I'm happy to use it as a daily at, bit of cosmetic work to be done and it'll be good to go.

[Burnzybubbles]

Well today the head gasket turned up so got to work on the A8 for the first time since taking the head off, felt nice to make a good start, I bought a flat hand sander and used some 1500 wet dry with wd40 to finish the mating surfaces off after scraping with a Stanley blade, I didn't go mad just took some of the surface corrosion off.

got the head bolted up today used all the locking tools as I should and managed to put the timing 180* out, for some reason there is a crank locking hole on both sides of the crank, spun the engine over by hand and thought lovely, I then took the cover off the other bank just to double check and that's when I realised, luckily being a V engine I turned the cams back slightly so all valves where seated, took all the bolts out the cam sprocket and spun it 180* and locked the crank in the right position, then pulled the cams back to tdc

I was going to put the chain covers on but lost some time with the timing, I did manage to change the timing belt on the HP pump too and clean up the injectors and the injector ports plus the glow plug holes and a few other bits, I didn't start till gone 2 so not a bad day and the worst of it is over.

I'v got the I left pipework and manifolds all need cleaning out as it was a job I had been meaning to do, get the exhaust mani bolted back up and coolant hoses, the hole engine needs a good flushing out and it'll be primed and ready

Some pictures of the head and block mating surfaces prepped and the head bolted on it looks a bit different now as if packed all the holes and put the cam cover on loosely just to protect it.

Block



Cylinder head



Bolted to car

[Burnzybubbles]

Another day of progress, it's getting there, iv currently got the inlet mani from bank 4-6 in caustic soda, apart from it being utter ****e to work with I'm impressed by its power with lack of doing anything, some pictures will be posted later but here's a snippet of the swirl flaps and inlet for 1-3 bank

[snapdragon]

Having this engine - I really appreciate you posting these photos as they fill gaps in my knowledge. Hope it all goes smoothly for you chap!

[Burnzybubbles]

Originally Posted by snapdragon

Having this engine - I really appreciate you posting these photos as they fill gaps in my knowledge. Hope it all goes smoothly for you chap!

Thanks snapdragon, I have faith in my work but I still have that horrid gut feeling that something might play up and that's another reason I just want it finished as once I start the engine my fear will have gone, I'm on the home straight now so I'm feeling happier about it all

[Burnzybubbles]

Well Yesterday was a brilliant day for me, the day before I finished off with having most the covers on and cleaning the inlet manifolds, yesterday I set about cleaning some of the intercooler pipework and fitting as much as I could, I'm currently awaiting the exhaust manifold gasket to turn up and then I can bolt that and the turbo outlet pipe, fit the air filter housing and flush the entire engine, coolant and oil to remove and crap that may have gotten into it whilst it was open, I was reluctant to fit the injectors and was going to do them last to give me a bit of space but I started to get restless yesterday as I have done all I can without the gasket and just went crazy and fitted them anyway

After being laid up for so long I had forgotten the routing of some of the stuff but luckily I had 1 picture with the cover off and I used that as a reference, luckily whilst removing stuff I left most the clips one items and that made it easier to gues its position along with the photo, once I had the vacuum lines coolant and fuel lines in place I set about putting the loom in, considering it looks quite busy once you delv in its surprisingly not too bad, got the loom done and that's when I decided I'd also fit the injectors, another stroke of luck is being piezo injectors they need to go back into the same cylinder and being ****ed off and probably tired when I took them out I just threw them into a bag, but when I fitted them I took photos of the tops in there respective cylinder for VCDS coding so they where soon back in the right place.

Right lets get some pictures up instead

This was end of play on Monday I think



A good feeling was finally putting all the locking tools back in the box as the crank pin had been in the car since July I obviously triple checked the car by turning over by hand more than two rotations



Some pictures of caustic soda cleaned inlet manifolds and swirl flaps







End of play Tuesday saw the engine bay looking like this



Excuse the orientation of the photo but this is it all back in bar the injectors and gasket I'm still awaiting



Now the good bits I got injector fitted and thought there's nothing stopping me firing it up just to check it's working as should be, but because it's been unstated for so long, it'll be a good idea to crank it over a few times to build oil pressure and get the oil up into the heads and turbo and bleed the fuel system of air on the HP side, so unplugged the injectors left the unions undone on the fuel lines and as you guys know one turn of the key and the car will keep turning till it fires, I made sure the starter had a rest between starts as its good practice, I was greeted by a wonderful sign though, and the puffs of smoke are just the left over oil I put in the bores to protect it and stop it from starting dry



Once I got all the air out the fuel lines I nipped the unions up, double checked everything was where it should be within reason as some stuff is still unbolted, I have to admit I felt very nervous plugging all the injectors in ready to crank the engine and let it fire for the first time, it was dry as I had emptied the coolant for the head work and only ran it for 10 seconds if that, it sounds like a drag car due to having no manifold one side and being an open straight pipe on the other, but it idled even and no smoke from cold start which was a nice healthy sign



So after that I was well chuffed, it was a little sluggish to start but only marginally and it's probably down to left over air in the injectors as they weren't bled, best news is, no more start up rattle I have to admit i'v gone the long way round about it but I got there in the end

Now I'm just waiting for the gasket to turn up, i'v also got to get a 1/4 torque wrench as the glow plugs need nipping up on the replaced side, and as my car was fitted with ceramic plugs i'v replaced the rebuilt side with steel plugs and will remove the other side once I run the engine and burn up some of the carbon deposits, the manual States no more than 16mn of release torque iirc and I really don't want to have them snap so will do this job by the book, once they are all related I then need to have the glow plugs coded for the new voltage they need, it can be done in conjunction with a remap though I could get the a5 injectors correctly mapped to the car as well

Sorry for the epic post but it's been a busy few days, it's the longest i'v probably ever written

[Burnzybubbles]

It's alive

It was dark so couldn't take any finishing photos but iv flushed the oil and just need to finish flushing the coolant and it's ready to hit the road, had trouble with an air lock but I'll post pictures of my handy little trick that cured it and got pretty much most the air out the system