OMG I HATE this F'ing car!!!!! -- What it is or isn't

[robert weinberg]

Thanks for all the info Ingo.

yeah, shayne and his cousin are coming by tomorrow to take a look.

man, i'm really on the fence with this car. i know that the $2,800 i paid for the car was no screaming deal. but it only had 114k on the clock (116k now) but it needed some TLC. shocks were shot and the paint on the roof is faded. at the same time, it has full records and lots of recent service including the timing belt, new radiators and hoses and UFO rotors. i figured i'd be into the car about $7k with paint. that's more than the car is worth these days but it was still worth it to me to not have a worn out example of the breed. and i don't view the car as an investment. just a long-term fun toy - not a daily driver.

flash forward to now. the moron that installed the timing belt, didn't bother to replace the roller nor the cam or crank seals. and the bastard just sat parked for the better part of the last two years before i bought it. so, the seals went and the roller started clacking. obviously, 034 replaced the timing belt again and water pump while there were in there. plus a crapload of other maintenance. 

it seems the one thing that drew me to the car - it having far less miles most of the 200q20v's i was looking at, is its downfall. you gotta drive these beasts. you can't just let them sit or all the hoses and seals go to shit.

coupled with mods (koni/H&R, 034 stage 1, samcos and 034 billet bypass) plus new kuhmo escta SPT tires on the 17" audi B5 rims that came on the car, and i'm into it about $8k including purchase. and it still has crappy paint and the previously nice driver's seat started ripping at the seam.

i don't know. abort mission and take a gnarly loss? or just keep forging forward. knowing that i've replaced a lot of the wear items, the engine's leakdown and compression test were very solid, turbo is like new according to 034. and at some point, i will have a totally badass 200q20v.

my goal (if the car would stop breaking) is the following:
034 stage I - done
koni/H&R - done
034 turbo back - not yet
tinted windows - not yet
possibly repaint the car from lago to oceanic blue - depending if it looks totally stupid when you see lago in the engine bay. oceanic is such a nicer color IMHO
finally enjoy the car!

still seems so far off :-(

see ya,
Robby






________________________________
From: Ingo Rautenberg <ingo.rautenberg at gmail.com>
To: 200q20v at audifans.com; robert weinberg <centaurus3200 at yahoo.com>
Sent: Saturday, July 11, 2009 12:55:08 PM
Subject: RE: OMG I HATE this F'ing car!!!!! -- What it is or isn't

Robby,

There are basically two scenarios and one is a lot easier to fix than the other.  

The first is you have an internal failure of the rubber bits in the clutch master or clutch slave , and inevitably, if you replace one, the other goes bad shortly thereafter or you replaced the wrong one.  In my experience, however, this almost always happens after you've parked the car overnight and you go to use it in the morning.  The clutch pedal actuation may have been slower, less precise in the days prior to this happening.
Had this happen a few times.

The second is what happened to me this past winter, and to which Tony Hoffman alluded to:  Perfect, smooth clutch action and then...huh?!? Why won't the pedal come up?  Why isn't there any resistance?
In my case the nut for the adjustment where the pedal attaches to the clutch master rod was not entirely snug against the clevis.  Then (I'm guessing here), the angle of force on the rod was such that it somehow became cockeyed and the rod bent and the pivot hole for the clutch master clevis pin snapped!!! 

So you need to replace the pedal assembly and the clutch master in this case.  Failry straight forward and you want to use a pressure bleeder (like the Motive one Mike mentioned). Likeloy no need to even bleed the slave (as I found out). The real bitch is getting that return helper spring in there.  That's the two piece white plastic one with the fairly thick spring.  I ended up using big Channellock pliers to compress and strong bailing wire to keep compressed enough for installation and then snipping the wires after install.

Anyhow, hope it's the first scenario and not the second -- but just shining a flashlight up there from underneath will pretty much tell you right away what the problem is/ isn't.

Good Luck.

Ingo