[Es2] Power steering belt, and other stuff.

[livinotte at cox.net]

Hi guys.

The avx13mm x 1000mm belt seemed to help alot.   I bought the Avx 13mm x 1030mm belt too.   However I tried that one first and it could not be tightened enough without the brake hydraulic assist line hitting the aby manifold.   The 13mm x 1000mm belt works because it clears the timing belt cover and the brake hydraulic assist doesn't hit the intake manifold when tighten.  Well, it's close it probably it hits it a bit, but it's fine.   I think the combination of this and re-bleeding the system has gotten rid of my brake problem.   As far as other brake problems, the autocheck "brake light" comes on when I hit the brake pedal.  I tried everything except for new bulbs which I'm picking up tomorrow.  Seemingly the previous owner installed the wrong bulbs and I'm hopefully that's the problem.   Also, because the brock wheels didn't clear the wilwood calipers without spacers I've decided to purchase a different set of wilwood calipers.   These units will work with the stock 276mm by 25mm rotors and will have a piston size of 1.75" inches.  Which is actually larger than the current wilwood setup.   This setup will work with spacers on the caliper carriers because the stock rotor hat height puts the calipers farther back than the previous setup.  My only concern is that the new wilwoods might be wide enough because of the fact that they clear 25mm rotors where it might double cross things and they too will rub on the wheels.   However I've got a g60 setup on my sedan which I'm willing to pull off and stick on the coupe if all else fails.   I'm getting the wilwoods for $210.00 so at that price it's worth a shot.

Also noted.

I had the stock Aby S2 oil cooler setup.   Some how the lines rubbed on the body of the coupe and produced a hole in the line quite quicky.   The solution was to use one of the stock ABY s2 lines but it's now attached to the line that got the hole in it.  Instead of aby s2 oil line being routed over the oil cooler it's now routed below it.   The solution to make this now work for me was to use one of the short 10vT audi 200 oil cooler lines.  This setup works and doesn't rub with my setup.   I found it disappointing that none of the hydraulic shops wanted to repair the broken line, but I'm happy I found a solution.  Somewhat a better solution to be honest.   All it all, it's nice to have the ability to be creative and find reasonable solutions, without spending $$$$$.

She runs great now to be honest.   The only "fuck up" right now is that I found a local exhaust shop that makes custom bends.    I used a shirt hanger and got the angles right and went to the exhaust shop to meet the stock exhaust to the downpipe flange(I have a 3b s2 downpipe now located in the coupe, vs the cut ABY s2 downpipe.    So I brought the guy a flange, and had him bend me a setup.    It mates to the stock setup, but the truth is that it's 2.5" and not.. well whatever the metric size of the exhaust currently.   Which meant for me to get it to work, I had to cut the new pipe shorter, and stuff the stock exhaust pipe inside the 2.5" pipe so I could put a clamp on the setup.  I welded it together and it works, but I need to find a better solution once the car is more road worthy.  However my neighbors are now happy because she's quiet.

The dash has been out of the car now for two weeks while I chase the electrical gremlins.    The majority of them have been fixed but there are a few more to figure out.

As much as I'm working hard as to do it right.   I'm also trying to get her just road worthy again.    My deadline is pretty much sunday night when I have to start work again.   Two+weeks and no work= I'm low on cash to say the least.

All in all it's great to be working on cars again.  sigh.. looks at that statement and thinks about the non stop crazyness for the past 3 weeks.   Well, mixed emotions, but it's been sucessful.

Cheers
Josh