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  #1  
Old 19th September 2020, 07:36 PM
MikkiJayne MikkiJayne is offline
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Default What's in the workshop? Gareth's Tree-find

Miss September is Gareth's 2001 Ming Blue which he found under a tree, as introduced here Things have obviously been on hold in the workshop for most of the summer, but this one has been stood for so long it needs rescuing before the winter before it deteriorates even further. So, this isn't a restoration this time - that will come next year. Instead this is a basic recomission: get it running and MoT'd so it can be used.

It scrubs up reasonably well:





A little grubby under the bonnet:



After some checks and tests we spun the engine over and all seemed well, although I had to hot wire it from the driver's wheel arch since it wouldn't turn on the key - indicative of what was to come After some checks in VCDS, it then started and ran - the first time since it was rescued. Its quite noisy with a bit of lifter tick which is hardly surprising considering how long it was parked. There was the inevitable chain rattle on startup, but that quietened down quite quickly.

After warming it up a little, we then put it back on the ground to see if it would move, and it did! No gearbox errors for a quick shuffle in the workshop which is a very good sign

Interestingly though, if the wiring in the ecu box was so much as touched when it was running it would immediately shut down with canbus errors galore which is interesting. We know this car suffered badly from water ingress, and someone has clearly been messing in the electronics box, so we suspect this is why it got parked up in the first place.

Time to dive in...

A bit of an oil leak, and also some squirrel signs



Some nibbling has happened!





There are nuts and seeds and detritus stashed all over the place!

She's a bit of a fighty one, with many seized fasteners having been damp for so long. I had to take the bumper off in a somewhat unconventional fashion which involved the headlights coming out first, which also put up a fight





The bumper had to come off with both supports I will deal with that later



The radiator looks ok so far, but the condenser is past its best





It was very difficult to push the car, and it turned out the rear right caliper was seized, due the usual fault:





I removed the pads and put this back on for now so I could roll it on and off the lift since I will need to get in to the interior to figure out the electronics issues.

I had a better look at the electronics box. This is 'interesting'



Erm...





Time to remove it and see what's going on which reveals possibly the most heinous bodge I've seen so far on the D2 - someone has sawed the front off the electronics box, then glued it back on with silicone sealant





No wonder the poor car had issues with water ingress! I think this may have been done to change the heater valve block, considering where it was cut. There is evidence that someone attempted to remove the electronics box, failed, and broke it in the process, so just gave up and cut it apart I'll be replacing that then, after I've done Botang's hole.

I forgot to take a pic of the whiteboard, but overall the list isn't too terrible. I score this one 3.6 rontgen I'm aiming for an MoT in 3 weeks time
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  #2  
Old 20th September 2020, 11:50 AM
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David's8 David's8 is offline
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That looks a bit of a mess but no doubt you'll get it to come good. The electronic box is a pretty spectacular bodge - worthy of some award, say, bodge of the year?
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Old 20th September 2020, 02:58 PM
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tc4332 tc4332 is offline
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Oooooh!!! Michaela
You have a dirty fingernail
First one I have seen during your ministrations.






You deserve another well done, please ignore my first three line sarcasm.
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Old 20th September 2020, 04:24 PM
Regulus Regulus is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkiJayne View Post
The bumper had to come off with both supports I will deal with that later
How on earth did you manage to get that off? Do you have small magical elves in the workshop?
As always, it's a wonder to see your work
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Old 20th September 2020, 08:08 PM
MikkiJayne MikkiJayne is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by David's8 View Post

That looks a bit of a mess but no doubt you'll get it to come good. The electronic box is a pretty spectacular bodge - worthy of some award, say, bodge of the year?
I really didn't think drilling a hole in the floorpan to get the lower control arm bolts out would get beaten to that title, but I think this one takes it by a fair margin!

Quote:
Originally Posted by tc4332 View Post
Oooooh!!! Michaela
You have a dirty fingernail
First one I have seen during your ministrations.
That's from a dirty diesel engine that I am currently building

Quote:
Originally Posted by Regulus View Post
How on earth did you manage to get that off? Do you have small magical elves in the workshop?
Take the headlights out to get to the upper bolts, then do the lower bolts through the foglight grilles It takes some wiggling to get it past the AC condenser pipework, but its possible. Not my preferred method of removal obviously, but necessary when one or both bumper bolts are seized!

Last edited by MikkiJayne; 20th September 2020 at 08:43 PM.
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Old 20th September 2020, 08:42 PM
MikkiJayne MikkiJayne is offline
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Today was electrical shenanigans, which I want to sort before taking everything else apart.

It won't start on the key so I started with that - turns out the F125 is not sending the P/N signal to the interlock relay. That's easily bypassed for now using the same solution as for the manual swaps:



Based on Andrew's investigations, this should be the upper pair of the four large contacts in the F125 so I will sort that when I get underneath. I'm still undecided on whether the engine is coming out of this one.

So, now it'll spin over on the key but won't start. Attempring to start lights up almost every error light on the dash and the TCU instantly goes in to limp mode with canbus errors in the TCU, cluster and ESP. Interestingly, during this the ECU is quite happy to talk to VCDS, but isn't powering up anything on the engine.

There is a loose connection or broken wire in here somewhere



I started off checking canbus connectivity - that's all good, so it must be a power supply problem. The ECU has a number of supplies - switched ignition (T15), permanent live (T30), and a switched live from the main ECU relay.

The start-up sequence is normally T15 from the ignition, then the ECU powers up the main relay (from which it has a feeback wire) then, if it doesn't immediately see an rpm signal from the crank sensor, it will do a self-test on the throttle body.

I started with T30 - all good there, 12V live. Then T15 - switch on the ignition and all good there too. So ECU relay then? No - that powers up fine, switches on the coils and injectors. Odd
So I turned the key and it started! Poking it yesterday broke it, and poking it more today fixed it, so while it was running I went round poking it some more I touched the main ECU fuse on the T30 supply and it shut down instantly. On investigation it turns out that the water ingress in the electronics box has caused corrosion on all of the fuse holder contacts and the fuse terminals. It seems that with switched ignition only, and not its permanent live, the ECU can power up enough for diagnostics but not enough to run. Motronic ME7 has a 'boot mode' which allows it to be bench-tested and flashed without throwing error codes. I suspect it was in a similar state to boot mode in this case.

With that sussed I cleaned up all the terminals and replaced and the fuses and now it fires up on the key, and stays running while poked Success! Someone has clearly been tinkering in there before and this is very likely why it was parked up.

Looking at the heater valve block, it is clear that the perpetrator of the electronics box mangling did so in order to hack at the valve block. There are at least six things wrong in this picture



1, the air intake servo cover screws are missing
2, the valve block is a PF / FL1 unit with the wrong connector
3, the valve block is hanging off the hoses as said perpetrator hasn't attached it to the bracket
4, the FL2 connector has been cut off and replaced with spade terminals
5, the recirc servo wire is routed incorrectly
6, the hoses aren't even attached properly



With that all fixed properly I moved on to cleaning up in preparation for Botang's hole and replacing the electronics box.



As expected there was a load of leaf matter under the heater, which was relatively easy to get out with the electronics box removed.

Cleaned up:



Botang's hole - as usual the tape just fell off while cleaning up.



I did the usual fix of filling the hole with a plastic rivet and then covering it up with seam sealer.

Some things crossed off the whiteboard already The folding mirrrors weren't, which was the module - that's first to get dripped on by Botang's hole so that was an easy fix.



I'll put the electronics box back in tomorrow and I want to see how it starts, having been run again today. The lifter tick was much better today but I couldn't get a good feel for chain tensioner noise as I'd had it spinning on the starter while testing so it already had oil pressure. If it rattles tomorrow the engine will be coming out. If it doesn't, then it won't
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Old 20th September 2020, 09:55 PM
HPsauce HPsauce is offline
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A familiar little picture of a short wire replacing a relay.
I'll be interested to see what you find inside that F125 on the P/N Starter Relay circuit. I wonder if there's a common mode of failure and mine is the same (and I vaguely recall Neil had the same issue too...)
Will it be the contacts strips or the contact levers on the moving arm or something else?
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Old 21st September 2020, 12:09 PM
GarethS8 GarethS8 is offline
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Wow thank god the car is with the Doctor who cares about them,

really annoyed that they wasn't honest to tell me they had someone messing
about in the ECU area

Oh well we live and learn, the car is now in the best place there is for my S8
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Old 23rd September 2020, 09:13 PM
MikkiJayne MikkiJayne is offline
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Kicking
my
arse
...


Ship-shape in the electronics box again, and the engine fires up and runs just fine now. No codes or chain rattle, so just the starter interlock in the F125 to sort.



After this though, it became clear that the drivetrain needed to come out as 75% of the fasteners are seized, the suspension and pinch bolts particularly so. Once the suspension struts are out, there's really only a handful of extra bolts to remove to drop the engine and gearbox, compared to what I already had to take out for the task list.

The AC condenser is toast, so I just cut off the fittings to save the hoses.



These go in the 'deal with it later' pile



First time I have had to drill out one of the front panel bolts This one came pre-rounded and thoroughly seized. Later...



Top side of the engine all detatched, fighting all the way, everything seized



Exhaust, driveshafts, prop, then drop the drivetrain tomorrow. Luckily I have a lot of parts on the shelf to replace the many of the things which are broken or now have snapped or drilled out bolts stuck in them That being, of course, the reason the car is here and not anywhere else
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Old 24th September 2020, 04:27 PM
Regulus Regulus is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by MikkiJayne View Post
Luckily I have a lot of parts on the shelf to replace the many of the things which are broken or now have snapped or drilled out bolts stuck in them That being, of course, the reason the car is here and not anywhere else


Indeed. Not what the Audi repair shop would have said.
Like they told me 3 years ago:"You better scrap the car and buy another"

But I do sympathise with you
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