WITW - Barn-find Final Edition

[Ronin]

Excellent work!

If you were to use rivnuts on the rear heatshield, would you have to remove the carpet to drill through just the floor and not damage the carpet?

[MikkiJayne]

I will be using rivnuts on those yes, but I won't be taking the carpet out. I'll just use a stop on the drill bit.

[strummagnet]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

There is now You had to poke the OCD tiger



Yeah, I cleaned the floorpan

Does this mean that from now on any visit to the D2 doctor you have to make sure your bottom is cleaned?

Any specific cleaning guide to pass on to the detailer?

[MikkiJayne]

Originally Posted by strummagnet

Does this mean that from now on any visit to the D2 doctor you have to make sure your bottom is cleaned?

Sparkling

I'll be coating the floor with the same sealant I use in the engine bay, so in theory it should remain relatively hydrophobic for a while and be easy to wash off any muck. That certainly worked on my Mum's Beetle cabrio which I did back in 2019, although that doesn't do many miles.

It certainly makes it a nicer place to work when its nice and clean underneath

[homer simpson]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

That certainly worked on my Mum's Beetle cabrio which I did back in 2019, although that doesn't do many miles.

It certainly makes it a nicer place to work when its nice and clean underneath

That's it, if you can work on Beetles you can work on D3's

Queue is behind me lads

[MikkiJayne]

I think you might have missed the most important part of that sentence

The fuel line rubbers cleaned up nicely in Evaporust, so then I soaked them in Autoglym rubber conditioner for a while and then put them back on the car with new clips and hardware





The paint is finally dry on the subframe so I put the engine and gearbox on it, ready to go back in the car

[MikkiJayne]

PS pump, new AC compressor and a few other bits back on the engine



I discovered an interesting thing about FE suspension today, specifically a slight side-effect of using the PF lower front arm since the FE one is NLA. The anti roll bar links don't fit properly, which puts the bushes constantly under tension and will wear them out in short order.



There's a gap between the mounting boss on the arm and the bar.



Because on the PF arm, the mounting sits slightly further outboard by 3mm or so





Bizarrely, the PF anti roll bar (top) is actually shorter than the FL, which would appear to compound the problem. I'll figure this out when I put the PF back together.



The A4 and A6 have this gap by design. They have the same design of ARB links, but with a small spacer on one of the bushes to accommodate this gap. I've ordered a couple of these to see if they fit better.



Arms, arb, downpipes and driveshafts back on so this is pretty much ready to go back in





The grip-washers came in for the heat shields too



Final cleaning of the tunnel and floor tomorrow and the engine can go back in

[strummagnet]

Originally Posted by MikkiJayne

I discovered an interesting thing about FE suspension today, specifically a slight side-effect of using the PF lower front arm since the FE one is NLA. The anti roll bar links don't fit properly, which puts the bushes constantly under tension and will wear them out in short order.

Not great. I have the same setup on my 2.8 and when sat normally the ARB links are twisted. Have only finished the front end refresh recently, looks like a rethink?

[MikkiJayne]

Yeah same on Big Red too, and a couple of others. The B5 links should sort it and they are the same price.

One bonus, ish, of using the PF front arms is that the bespoke 20" headlight levelling link is no longer needed and the standard link can be used instead. Good if it's missing completely like this one. Less good if you already have a good 20" link I guess.

[homer simpson]

Regarding the drop links, have you ever thought of poly bushing them or do you prefer original rubber ones? The drop links seem to be similar to ones used in many Audis, I know my S8 (D3) is exactly the same as an A6 diesel of the same era