[V8] Visitation with the patient

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Tomorrow is the big day.  My '93 V8 gets reassembled, and hopefully two
things will happen. First of all, it is hoped that the new oil gallery plugs
will indeed end the oil leak from the right side head, and the engine will
be once again, singing its most marvelous song. Secondly, it is hoped that I
will be able to survive seeing the bill, which will include a new waterpump,
new hydraulic pump, new rollers and tensioner, new head gaskets and all the
other assorted new, replaced, weak gaskets, gizzies and gizmos felt that
needed replacing....PLUS the labor charge for doing it all. I am hoping for
a bill that is somewhat south of three grand.....

On another front, while I was there, I fired up my Audi 20valve Avant, that
is waiting its turn in the "operating theater".  Now, here is a puzzler for
you all:

I drove the car to the body shop for the fun of it, just to see what that
magical guy will want for a "preservation quality" paint job...Panther
Black....which will include repositioning the left front fender, and
assorted other tweaks and twirls to make the car as good as it can be as a
"driver".

The car goes like a scalded rabbit.  It has a chipped ECU, but I dunno what
kind of chip or what it is supposed to deliver.  My guess is that it is
delivering at least 275 horsepower, but it might be more.  For now, let's
just say that it has 4.2 litre V8 "grunt" in a Type 44 Avant body.

But it has a "whine".  Sometimes.

Now, I drove the car from Washington, D.C. to Maine last fall when I bought
the car, and it performed perfectly on the trip up.  After it was here for a
few weeks, in much colder climes, when I drove the car for a few miles, the
"whine" would appear.  It is not a shriek, but a fairly loud, medium high
pitched whine or "song" that appears, sometimes when just starting off, and
then sometimes after rolling along for a few miles.

It does not respond, change, go away, or appear in response to anything
except rolling along. It does not respond to sudden loading or unloading of
the front end, by swerving the car; it does not respond to throttle changes,
or to release of the clutch.

There are NO vibrations anywhere in the driveline of the car.  No vibrations
in the transmission; the front end, or anywhere else that either the
mechanic or I can find.  Just this sort of medium high pitched howling.

The real mystery is that suddenly, and without warning, like the flicking of
a light switch, the sound......goes away.  It just stops and sometimes
doesn't restart for miles or until the car has come to a rest and then been
restarted.  All of a sudden, it's just....GONE.

Shocks on the car are relatively new Bilsteins.  There are some "issues"
with the suspension, and on the list, including replacement of rear
suspension arms, is the draining of the transmission and refilling, with
examination of the transmission fluid; and a new rear suspension mount
bushing that is sorely weak.

We suspect that it might be an issue with a half shaft....left side, because
that is where the noise seems to be....front left.  We also wonder if it
might be a center universal joint, or even a transmission bearing inside the
transmission, although there are no other signs of transmission "issues".
We do suspect that the transmission may have been out of the car at some
point, and I think it was a clutch as evidenced in the records for the car
that I have.

Today I heard from someone whose close friend bought a new Audi Quattro some
time ago, and the car developed a strange whine, which took forever and a
day, and the direct assistance of some Audi mechanics from Nekkarslum to
sort out.  So I thought I would put this up on the hope that maybe someone
in the Great Audi Brain Trust may have heard something  about this in the
past.  Any ideas?

Roger