Good weekend for my Audis...

[Fisher, Scott]

The frost is definitely on the pumpkin here in Sunnyvale, California -- at
my house literally so, as we still have some of our Hallowe'en decorations
out in the front yard.  So I moved my beloved '74 Alfa Romeo Spider into the
garage and, starting during the rain at the end of last week, prepared to
spend the weekend fixing some niggling little gripes I've had with my '83
CGT.

Those plans got a big boost on Friday, when the UPS guy delivered my new
wheels and tires.  I decided to stay very conservative in sizing and
compound and stuck with a modest +1 -- 15 x 7 wheels with Pirelli P6000
Sport Veloce tires in 195-50 size (I wanted these to fit without
modification and still provide the benefits of shorter sidewalls and wider
tread than my stock 185-60s).  Kudos to Tires.com for sending the right
mounting kit, including lug bolts instead of nuts, and including four wheel
locks.   A little work with the floor jack and I had the new wheels
installed Friday afternoon; just as I was torquing the last one, the rain
began to fall again.  I *love* the way the larger rims and wider tires look,
and in my too-short experience driving them on a couple of freeway ramps
over the weekend, the grip and feel are a stunning improvement over the
stock wheels and tires.  Again, they're far from the ultimate in any
direction, but they also aren't overworking the stock suspension --
everything is really well balanced, just at higher cornering limits than the
185-60s were capable of generating.  I'm going to have a lot of fun with
this car.

So Saturday I set out to repair two of the other gripes: lighting and
cooling.  No, I didn't install Euro lights or blue xenons -- but since
buying the car 2 years ago the right-hand high/low light has been burned
out, and both high-beams have been full of condensation and looked dim even
when they were not lit -- the silvering had worn/oxidized off the back of
the lights.  Even with the lights off, the car looked sad and dark and
neglected.  Now that driving home means full darkness, I guess I'd had
enough.  Fortunately, the stock lights were even worse than usual (with only
one low-beam working and the high beams dimmer than normal), so I reasoned
that ANYTHING would be an improvement.  Four new bulbs later (with the outer
high-low beams being, what were they, the Sylvania Xtras or something --
ilke I said, I am NOT a light snob by any stretch of the imagination), the
car looks much happier just sitting still in the daylight.  I won't know how
much better things work till tonight, as my wife's Audi was blocking me in
the driveway last night so I haven't had a test-drive.

My wife's '93 100CSQ got some attention as well.  We're planning a trip to
Oregon at the end of the week, and as the wear bars were showing on all four
corners it seemed like a good idea to get new tires.  (After seeing how much
better the CGT looked with +1 rims, Kim said she was starting to feel
jealous, but a quick look at the cost involved in upgrading to 16" or 17"
wheels and tires, plus the necessity of hitting the road Friday afternoon,
cooled her down.  Ah well, this just means we'll have till next spring to
consider the upgrade... :-)  A local shop had four Dunlop D60s in stock for
a price that ended up lower than the Tire Rack's, after shipping and
installation, so an hour and ten minutes later both Audis had new tires.
The D60s, again, aren't meant to be track tires but seem to be a good choice
for a family Quattro which will see a lot of rain in the near future.  I
drove home from the tire shop and was surprised at how much smoother the car
was just with new tires and freshly balanced wheels.  It's going to be a big
improvement on the trip to Oregon next weekend.

So then it was time to tackle the last ugliness in the CGT -- the cooling
system.  In June, during a major heat wave with temperatures over 100
degrees F for a week, I had *also* left the convertible at home to drive the
CGT, which is blessed with A/C.  On the way home from work one Friday, a
heater hose blew and I got to wait for the tow truck.  I had a shop replace
*all* the hoses to lessen the likelihood of repeating the day's waste of
time when the next hose blew, but ever since then the car has just wanted to
run hotter than it used to.

A tip from Phil Payne on the non-reusability of the cooling system filler
cap helped some when I replaced the cap, but it still ran closer to the high
end of the range than I liked.  I replaced the thermostat (separate tech tip
later) and was pleased to see that the car now keeps the needle below the
center of the temperature gauge instead of flirting with the too-hot mark.  

My 4-year-old son, Charlie, helped me close up after everything was
tightened and replaced -- Charlie screwed the grille back on (much easier to
get to the thermostat with the grille out) and pushed the clips into place,
then helped me rub some plastic finish on the black trim on the nose.  "The
black part at the back looks like a race car, Dad!" he said.  "What do you
mean, Charlie?" I asked him.  He trotted out behind the car and tapped the
spoiler.  "This part looks like a race car!"  He's right. :-)  He also
cleaned out the interior a bit, having helped me detail the Spider's
interior before putting it in the garage the previous week.  Between two
trips to Pep Boys for supplies and a stop at Orchard Supply Hardware to
replace a broken toilet seat, we had a Major Guy Weekend.

The trip to work this morning, with the CGT's new thermostat, was very
rewarding.  The needle sat at the bottom of the thermometer icon till the
one long stoplight at the midpoint of my short commute, which saw the needle
rise to the middle of the thermometer; on Friday the same trip in the same
weather saw the needle rise from the top of the thermometer to just under
the "too high" tick mark.  Moving at a modest 40-45 mph after the long
stoplight dropped the needle again.  I'm happy.  I just wish I'd had the
opportunity to try out the new tires a bit more.

Oh, on top of everything else, I installed five new Bosch Platinum plugs as
well, since the last plugs were over a year old (and non-platinum).  The car
starts better when cold now and idles smoothly; I haven't had the
opportunity to do any "interesting" driving in it since replacing the plugs,
but that will come in time.

I found a neat trick to help refill the cooling system after replacing the
thermostat -- will follow up with a tech report later.

--Scott Fisher
  Sunnyvale, California (more like Frostyvale this weekend!)