RE: Ur Quattro HELP!

[dlawson@ball.com (Dave Lawson)]

Gerry,

>On Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I was cruising down hiway 280
>(SF Bay Area) at approx 80mph and the Seat Belt Warning Lamp began to
>flash.  The flashing became more rapid and the lamp intensity
>increased.  Eventually, after about 2 minutes, the lamp stayed on and
>about 2 minutes after that the engine and electrical systems ceased to
>function!  I was unable to restart the car, so the tow truck was
>summoned.  On Monday & Tuesday the trusty mechanics at Anderson-Behel
>attempted to ascertain the cause of the malfunction.  They were unable
>to trouble shoot the symptoms and resorted to borrowing a variety of
>components from a fellow Ur Quattro owner.  After much substitution
>they have determined the following components need to be replaced:

Sorry to hear about the problem. After reviewing the electrical wiring
drawing for the 83 TQC (I know it's not a perfect match for the hand built
Audi, but it is a place to start), the only electrical connection that the 
seat
belt warning lamp/control unit has to the parts listed below is they both
have wires going to the fuse box and have no real electrical connection.
At this point I find it hard to believe that some glitch which displayed
itself through the sealt belt lamp smoked the ECU. Do you have any
other information, especially when you say that the engine/electrical
system ceased to function? What didn't work? Which lights still worked?
Would the engine turn over?

>ECU                       $1738.00
Yikes! I believe Ned has been known to check out ECUs for a nominal
fee. This might be in order here. Spend a bit of cash and have Ned verify
that the ECU is truely damaged beyond repair.

>Hall Sensor                 160.05
I changed this part on my TQC years ago trying to figure out a wierd
electrical problem. From past history these things almost never go bad.
Comments from the crowd? Anyone else ever change one?

>Ignition Control Module     237.25
These are known for going bad on the TQCs. There is a Hella
replacement part for maybe $50, definately less than $100. Give Imparts
a call. It was listed in the Hella master catalog they sent to us once.

>Relay                       100.65
Which relay? Where is it located?

>Battery Cable                37.55
Which exact battery cable? On the TQC there is the cable which goes from
the + battery terminal under the rear seat and into the body on the 
passenger
side of the car. It comes out of the frame rail up under the air box and 
goes
to the alternator/starter. I have once heard from a fellow TQC owner that on
one of his cars, where the cable exits from the frame rail,  the cable 
insulation
wore off and intermittantly shorted out. This is the only time I have heard 
of
this problem, but it might be worth a check.

>
>Labor       `               504.00
>

Does this include the diagnosis time? I would hope so. At $50/hr this is
10 hours of labor. I would bet that almost any home-brewed audi mech
here on the net can replace the above in 5 hours or less. The battery
cable/hall sensor might take a bit of time. The rest is plug-n-play.


>The question that I have is:  "Does it seem likely that all of these
>components failed at the same time? If so, what could have possibly
>caused this to happen?  Anybody out there have working components that
>they are willing to sell?  According to the Kelly Blue Book the car is
>only worth about $8k so it does not make much sense to to put over 1/3
>of the value into parts for it.  I know, I know -- we do it because we
>love the cars!  But, I would like to make it as painless as possible!

I don't think the above parts all failed at one time. I would start by 
looking
into the fuse box. Where is your fuse box located in your 83, under dash or
under hood. If it is under dash, has it ever been replaced? Have you ever
performed the electrical mods to the back of the fuse box wiring which RDH
has described so many times here on the net?  I would recomend that these
updates be performed if you plan on keeping the car.

If the ECU and ICU are really bad, I would consider an update to the
86-early 89 5000T ECU and harness. These ECUs can be had used for
maybe $350. In fact I purchased an entire 89 engine/harness/ECU for almost
the same amount listed for the TQC ECU. There are other options.

Hope this helps.
 -
Dave Lawson  dlawson@ball.com
86 GT
83 TQC