EU Spec fully electric rear seats retrofit...

[IT]

Heres a quick guide on how to put a rear door card back on, properly

Firstly, check you have all the parts..... The top two parts are so absolutely fundamental to your interior door handle mechanism that you dont want to even think about starting it you have misplaced one of these... the other items are listed in the order you would install them:

3 screws across the top of the top of the door under the wood trim
1 8mm bolt under the door grab handle
2 small retaining screws to hold the card back at the top corners
2 screws to hold the window switch trim in place




Plus, your door card clips.... costing pennies and making all the difference - 8 for a rear door, 9 for a front door:



Here is the front view of my door card. The eagle eyed will spot the blinds in the top part, and although it is hard to spot, this is a full leather door card so the double stiching runs the whole lenght of the card in the middle from left to right....




and on the reverse, I've marked the 8 locations for the door card clips. just pop them old (likely broken) ones out, and slide in the spanky new ones.... You will also have to remove the reciprical broken parts still left in the door. They will be old and brittle but will smash out. Try not to push inside the door unless you can help it, and if they do go in, fish around in there to get them out again - you dont want a rattle !



Once ready to fit, we start with the wiring. on a facelift card like this we need to wire in the puddle lights, rear red visibility light, pop the cables through towards the grab handle for the electric window switch, hook up the speaker and remember the tiny connector for the illumination on the door handle... Note also only one speaker to connect here as we have Bose. With non-bose, you also have a tweeter in the rear doors... I know, its odd, I didnt design it... !

Note the old floor mat on the floor to protect the card, use some old carpet / rags etc just to stop it getting scuffed as there is no easy way to do this without putting it down on the floor several times.....

Note I've also managed to get a bit more fabric tape in there - just to replace old worn duct tape which has come off, to keep the wires secure inside the door...



You then need to connect up the door handle cable which is a tricky two handed job. The platic C shaped semi-circle goes inside the metal semi-circle of the door handle pull mechanism and the door pull cable slides into that and clicks in. The metal clip is used to keep it in place and stop it falling out. I have no photo as I have no spare hands, but I'm guessing if you're putting a card back on, you took one off so have half an idea what I'm talking about !

Once thats on, the card can be put on - Start at the top by locating the door locking pin into hole and then hook the whole card over the top of door and hang it down. You will then be able to manipulate it into postion above the door cars clips and start to push/bang it gently into place. The clips will snap into position and hold it nice and tight

Once that is done, you can put in the 3 big crosshead screws at the top:



and then the small screw to the rear:



and the other small screw to the front:



and finally the 8mm bolt through the grab handle region and you're done.

The original wood trim just clips in over the top of the 3 big screws, and the door handle will push in to place after connecting the window switches up.

Then the grab handle has a small section underneath with pushes up to mate into place....

Job done...

[IT]

right, i've spent hours documenting relitively small jobs, so in actual fact by the end of sunday I had refitted both rear doors.

I'd also had chance to tidy and sort my garage, and found loads of spare screws.

To be specific, they really were spare from other stuff, but because I have put this car back together so 'perfectly' I have used more screws and bolts than I had, as originally some were missing.

The result was that the drivers lower dash half couldnt go on at all as all the screws were missing, and I cant begin to count how many screws and bolts David has sent me from a8 parts (big thumbs up, between him and Carl I COULD NOT have done this !! )

Anyway, tidy of garage yeilded enough spare hardware to get it done, so drivers side lower facia went in, along with carpet trims.

I also managed to get the boot completely sorted.

As the LPG conversion went in before i got the car, I had no chance to work behind it.

I removed the LPG tank a month ago for this project, so I have now sorted the boot carpet, cut it properly to size, retrimmed the boot making sure every faster is in correctly and I've also got the LPG tank back in and piped up, just waiting 10 mins spare to resolder the electrical connections back on to the solenoid and sender unit.

So, whats left to do ?

* LPG electrical
* Door grab trims for passenger and both rear doors
* Fully wet vac the drivers carpet trims (everything else was cleaned and looks fab in comparison)
* Buy some rubber mats so my nice clean Audi ones stay that way

Anything not quite right?

Yes

2 problems have crept out of the woodwork:

1) The passenger seat memory which I wired up blind not 100% understanding its whole workings has one slight mis-wire. The white'/green wire which I wired from the passenger memory buttons to the passenger seat to the drivers seat to the drivers memory buttons, shouldnt have gone to the drivers seat. It does on cars without passenger memory so that memory 4 works, but with passenger memory, button 4 should only do the passenger seat and not the drivers. The (rather amusing) result is that when the passenge does their memory 4, they move the drivers seat - Easy fix though and I've already broken the connection to the drivers seat so now its behaving properly.

2) The passenger seat goes forward, a lot. I dont think its more than normal, but it goes further than my cabling currently allows. If i move the seat all the way forward, the connector for the passenger seat memory stretches and falls out so memory stops working. Its nothing that extending 10 wires wont fix, but I'm a little tired of soldering this week...

[IT]

The million dollar question.....

I've lost count of hours, days, weeks, not to mention ££'s...

Every piece of trim was cleaned before it went back in the car, every piece scrutinised for damage and fixed where possible. Every nut and bolt was re-instated as audi intended, and even door cards were given a new lease of life with new door clips and every single foam seal around the outside rebonded to make sure they were air tight.....

Nothing has gone back into this car unless I was happy it was the very best example of that part that could be fitted that I could reasonably lay my lands on (and I have a vast inventory!)

At the end of the day I have an absolutely unique D2, something that was never even built at the factory.

Its an A8 when alls said and done, and I have the V5 to prove it, yet all its running gear is S8 and all its interior is pure luxury. Its pre March 2001 so will only ever get taxed as 'above 2000cc' and it runs LPG just to makes things cheaper still.

Its the most comfortable car I've ever been in, and today driving it from Harrogate to Birmingham something else struck me:

Its quiet.

Dam quiet. Almost, new car quiet. You know how new cars just ride the bumps and not a squeak, or a murmor or a sound because everything is so tight? Well, thats about where its at. Its done over 150K miles and feels like its done 10. and somehow, thats a really signifiant unexpected bonus. I put all this effort into blinds, and rear seats all for passenger comfort yet i have this unexpected bonus for me, the driver.....

.... a brand new car

Was it worth it ?

Hell yes

[Mr K]

Bloomin excelent! You must be extremely pleased with this!

A couple of quick questions;
- does all the wood on the doors come out simply by carefully levering it? i assumed i would have to remove the door cards to get the grab handle bits out.

- Did you wet vac the alcantara inserts in the door cards? they look spotless! My drivers door card has a couple of marks / scuffs from people getting in and out. I have access to a wet vac as my brother does carpet and upholstery cleaning, but was worried to use it on the alcantara.

Edited to add:
would love a ride in it, even just to head how quiet mine is! there seems to be a hell of a lot of road noise in mine; it seems no quieter than my girlfriends 1999 polo. hopefully new suspension arms will stop this.

[IT]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Bloomin excelent! You must be extremely pleased with this!

A couple of quick questions;
- does all the wood on the doors come out simply by carefully levering it? i assumed i would have to remove the door cards to get the grab handle bits out.

- Did you wet vac the alcantara inserts in the door cards? they look spotless! My drivers door card has a couple of marks / scuffs from people getting in and out. I have access to a wet vac as my brother does carpet and upholstery cleaning, but was worried to use it on the alcantara.

Edited to add:
would love a ride in it, even just to head how quiet mine is! there seems to be a hell of a lot of road noise in mine; it seems no quieter than my girlfriends 1999 polo. hopefully new suspension arms will stop this.

1) - No need to remove door cards for a wood change. The strips across the top literally just prize out. Then, remove the lower half of the door handle insert by prizing gently with a flat blade of some kind and when it comes out it reveals 2 x cross head screws. Remove these, and the wood door handle insert will also come out with some prizing...

2) - Nope, I chickened out on the alcantara - They're not quite as good as the photos make them out to be unfortunately, but I always figured those bits I could get professionally cleaned at a later date if I felt like it. The carpets were main problem area and they came up a million times better...

[IT]

Originally Posted by Mr K

Bloomin excelent! You must be extremely pleased with this!

Edited to add:
would love a ride in it, even just to head how quiet mine is! there seems to be a hell of a lot of road noise in mine; it seems no quieter than my girlfriends 1999 polo. hopefully new suspension arms will stop this.

Yes, very pleased indeedy

I've no objection to sharing a bit of cabin space with you for a demo should our paths ever cross, but your car sounds way too noisy - Have you thought about closing the windows?

[CliveH]

Worth every hour and every penny IMHO - your perseverance and attention to detail are second to none - well done Ian!

[IT]

I got the tank back in the boot the other day, but I've only just had chance to sort the wiring....

Its not hard, just 4 wires for mine - 1 pair go to the pressure sensor for how full the tank is, and the other pair go to the solenoid valve that lets gas out of the tank when the car is burning LPG. At all other times, this valve is closed preventing gas escaping. I believe it is also set to trip closed at a certain flow rate, so if you rip a gas line wide open the valve will close instead of letting it all out. The outlet is the thin pipe on the left with the solenoid, and the fill pipe in the larger one on the right. It has a one way valve that opens under pressure to fill and then closes with the back pressure so its safe. Note the substantial bracketry too. LPGA regulations dictate what g-force impact a car should sustain and have the gas tank still anchored in position in the car, and whilst the numbers escape me, its a big number so it needs to be sturdy. One of the problems with the spare wheel tanks is that the A8 has a fiber glass tub which isnt strong enough to bolt to, so it needs metal work fabricating from above and always ends up with an uneven floor.... anyway, I digress....

Photo of the wiring part done:




And here we have the job done, covers on and boot looking quite tidy compared to a few weeks ago:



and my new LPG control location, now lit up with some green showing we're burning the good (aka cheap) stuff

[Mr K]

Looks like i need to invstigate my road noise issues, Is been bugging me quite a lot, and now i know its not quite right its driving me nuts! If our paths cross, i will definitely be taking you up on that offer of a ride in your car.

Do you have the part number for the door card clips?

and is that a special plastic cover on the right hand side of your boot?