[ba] Tom Nas starting his way home ...

[Buchholz, Steven]

Well, things didn't work out exactly as originally planned, but it looks as
though we reached an acceptable conclusion ... Tom and Paul are now starting
their return journey ... with the Fox still in my driveway!!!  Thanks to an
excellent suggestion from Dan Hamren we found a transport company who will
pick up the car and deliver it to the folks who will pack it up and send it
on its way to Europe ... 

Things were not looking good at the end of the day last night ... we closed
up shop at about 1:30AM and the car still was not running well ... but we
had identified the likely cause ... the fuel system pressure was
astronomical ... 10 bar or more ...  I installed the FI system we had pulled
from a car at the PnP ... and the pressure was still high ... obviously a
plugged control pressure regulator or fuel distributor were not at fault!
The return line had gotten plugged ... before I went to sleep I figured out
a patch that might work well for temporary purposes ... in the morning we
confirmed that the plugged return was the problem and figured a way to plumb
the return to the vent line on the fill pipe ... took the car out for a spin
and it is running better than it has in a long time!  Given the crud
remaining in the tank it is not wise to attempt to drive the car on its own,
but at least we know that as soon as the tank is repaired the car should be
functional.  If only they didn't puncture the fuel tanks in the cars at the
PnP Tom could very well have been able to drive himself ... 

It was great to have an opportunity to see Tom again ... last time for me
was at MH99 ... and it was good he had a chance to do some sight seeing in
addition to working on the car!  Best of all for me it is exciting to know
that the car I purchased new in 1978 is not going to end up sitting in a
wrecking yard ... like that '77 Fox which supplied so many unique parts for
Tom to use in his restoration ... thank you ever so much Tom for giving this
project a go!  We wish Tom and Paul a safe and enjoyable journey back to
southern California ... and back home to Europe.  I guess I'll now have a
reason to visit Europe ... to see my old car back in proper shape ...

It is unfortunate that we didn't have a chance to meet with anyone else ...
but Tom left a pile of brochures from Europe ... and individual deliveries
for Daryn B and Ti ... perhaps we need to talk about a session at Kal's in
the next week or two.  Actually next week would probably work best with my
schedule ... Tuesday would be good if we could get an early start and I
could do Wednesday as well ... 

Another note ... when I went to pull the fuel pump and FPA from the car we
found I found that this weekend there's a half price deal going on at the
PnPs ... The one on Commercial near the flea market actually has quite a few
Audis there, many still rather complete.  There's the '77 Fox we descended
upon ... a couple 4000s ... don't remember if any were quattros ... mostly
5000s ... everything from a '79 5000 to a fairly new 200 (unfortunately the
turbo and air box were hacked out rather abruptly ... The PnP on Monterey
Road was the only other one we visited ... not so many Audis there, but
there was a nice '86 4k and several versions of 5000 ... anyone visited any
of the other yards lately?

Steve Buchholz
San José, Kaleefohnia (USA)