Timing belt-update

[Rbade12 at aol.com]

Good evening,
 Pretty good day. With the help of the Avant Boys things went,  generally, 
well. 
 
Bad things:
1] Replacing the thermostat, how the "bleep" is one supposed to access that  
little beauty..  particularly if you don't have the entire front end off  the 
car?..did it, but took a long time!
 
2] Those damn allen head screws [ the one with the H2O pump and the  
passenger side lower timing belt cover]. Stripped the innards out [I was very  
careful], took quite a while to drive a larger allen and get those suckers  out.
 
3] The tool Blau provided to remove the front crank seal is the tool  Bentley 
says is the rear crank seal tool.....so, I screwed around with that for  way 
longer then needed. Blau actually sent a piece along with the tool saying  
"use this"........instead of the proper tool. Did not damage the crank hacking  
away at it!!
 
Good things:
 
1] Most fasteners came off very easily, and I'm air challenged, [this  is a 
92k 200q20v, Maryland car, never been opened up]. 
 
2] Timing marks were easy to see and all my timing worry was needless  
[however, checked things many, many, many  times]
 
3] I won a free Dr Pepper from the bottle I drank while doing  this!!!!!
 
4] Audi engineering is to be admired...they seem to think things  through!
 
That's it, in my world of car fixin', to not be bleeding profusely and/or  
have to replace some expensive component 'cause I f'ed something up, it's a good 
 day!!!
 
Polishing off the first of......uh, two malty treats
 
Thanks for your help gentlemen, I was much stronger today because of it!!!  I 
was the Lance Armstrong of car fixin'!!!!
 
Bob