[V8] Back on the V8

[Kevin Wahaus]

Well, after letting the car sit for a few weeks, I took the day off and had a friend come over to help me with some issues.

First up, was trying to get the thing to idle properly. Pretty sure it's fuel related. It will drive, but won't idle unless I hold my foot on the pedal. As some of you may recall, I bought the car last fall from the original owner and had been parked the last five years. Initially, I just threw in a new battery, gassed it up and took off. Seemed to run decent and was in no hurry to start throwing money at it. Besides, it took almost two months to resolve an issue with the title and get it registered and tagged.

Anyway, back to the work. The fuel pump has always been VERY noisy. So I thought I'd start there. Ordered a new Bosch unit but when I went to install it, it was too small. Wrong one I guess. Called local CarQuest and they said they had the correct one in stock. I can pick it up tomorrow. Next, my fuel gauge has been very intermittent. So, I ordered a new sending unit since I was going to be removing the old one to get to the pump. The new one is a VDO but seems to have an extra tube on it. Venting? Hope that fixes my gauge issue. Next up will be a new fuel filter. Hopefully all of that will get it to idle properly. If not, I think the FPR would be next.

Also, I want to start tracking down and fixing all of the leaks. I bought 5 o-rings that I told went on the backside of the engine. They were bought from Audi with information from I got from Tom L (who has been VERY helpful) so I have part numbers if anyone needs them. I have two green ones (about 2") that go on the distributors. I've removed the left distributor and can see where that goes. Oh, and the caps and rotor looks bad, so I will be replacing those, too. I'm guessing because the rotor is orange, it's the push on kind. Two Bosch distributor caps and two orange Bosch rotors = $194.77 from AutohausAZ. Yikes.

So where do the other three seals go? They are all blue. Cam seals? Two are a bit bigger than the green ones, and the other is smaller.

Also today, I pulled the valve covers to replace the gaskets. That's gone pretty good so far. Do I need any gasket seal goo or will the rubber gaskets be ok by themselves? 

And I installed new Bosch single electrode sparks plugs. Old ones looked bad. I don't know how old they were but they were NGK that has Audi logos.

A few other things I noticed. There is a hose that goes across the air intake in the back of the engine behind the air box. It seems really hard. Is it supposed to be pliable? And does the wire mesh screen come out? And if so, should I and clean it?

Then there was what I think it a heater hose that goes from the back of the engine up to the heater core. I looks like it has collapsed in two pieces (pinched together). Is that normal?

That was about it for one day. Seeing as how I'm putting so much time and money into the car, it looks like I'll be keeping it for awhile.

Thanks for everyone's help. I couldn't do this without the support of the group.

Kevin

P.S. I've already bought most of the parts for a full timing belt service. So that's ahead of me too (oh, and the blower motor....)