Re: Audi 5000 Question. 85? (really "Mexico trip")

[rshurter@lanl.gov (Brad Shurter)]

Eddi Jew wrote:
>... But I found under-dash work a real pain. The contortionist kind of pain
>>(ouch).

Several months back, I also had to replace the clutch master cylinder on my
'86CS TQ.  What you say about the under-dash work is right! I was barely
able to get the circlip off of the pin holding the adjusting fork to the
clutch pedal. The "pedal mounting" (all terms from exploded view in Bently)
has only small openings for access.  Anyway, after amazing myself at being
able to get the PIN back in, I was never able to get the circlip back on
(let alone *replace* it as the book says to).  It remains now, with a piece
of *very strong* samarium-cobalt magnet material holding it in place.

As an aside, a few months back, not too long after doing the above "job",
my wife's "volks" visiting from northern Germany and us took a little
2000-mile trip down the mainland west coast of Mexico, across the Sea of
Cortez to La Paz on the Baja, up the Baja to California and back to N. Mex.
All with this magnet holding the pin in -- I sure would like to get it
done right someday.

The worst thing that happened to us on the trip, was that my wife succumed
to Salmonella Typhoid three hours from even the nearest phone.  We got her
to a hospital at San Quintin where they took *good* care of her.  She was
put on IV right away and given massive antibiotics. Her temp. got to about
41 deg. C (105.8 F -- another degree and you're brain-dead), and they made
her take a cold shower in the night.  The next afternoon, her parents and I
took her on our way, and she was healthy ever since.  The *neat* thing
about this was the when she was "admitted", we saw no "administrators", no
paper work, just Doctors and nurses.  When they released her, we tried to
pay, but were told (in spanish -- no one spoke English) "you do not pay
here ... this is Mexico!"  I figure that this may be one reason that that
illegal immegrants are accused of using our medical facilities without
paying, they don't know that they aren't free.

Another (possibly) interesting sidelight was when we stayed at this
*beautiful* motel outside of Santa Rosalia (an old French mining town with
a metal church designed by Eiffel, prefabed in France, and erected in Sta.
Rosalia).  We parked right next to another Audi 5000 similar to ours, but
non-Quattro.  We talked to these people, and they said that they had tried
to take a dirt road that we had previously considered taking on the Gulf
side up to San Felipe, but luckily didn't (with Sabine's illness and all).
They were cruising allong the wash-board road, when suddenly they found
themselves "beached" on a pile of sand.  The grader that was working on the
road and had put the sand there was required to pull them out.  I thought
to myself that *we* probably wouldn't have had that problem with our
*Quattro*.  Enough digression ... . Next time, "(other)Germans in La Paz",
or, "Nazi's in Paradise".




Brad Shurter - AOT Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM
87545  (505)665-1122, E-mail: rshurter@lanl.gov, 73023.533@compuserve.com
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