My Ur-Q blew its top...

[audidudi@mindspring.com (Jeffrey J. Goggin)]

This morning, while out for a quick drive with a friend and his '86 944
Turbo, I blew my heater valve.  Alas, thanks to Audi's decision not to
include a water temp gauge, I didn't notice until we'd stopped for breakfast
and returned to see a large greenish-brown puddle under the car...

Since we were only five miles from my house, we flat-towed it to the garage
at my girlfriend's apartment (the new home of my "shop") behind my 200q and
I proceeded to investigate.  The valve was less than 90 days old -- I'd
replaced it with an OEM one as part of my regular "preventive maintenance"!
-- and it appears that I also blew the headgasket since there's a leak
between the 3rd and 4th cylinders.  (It's a good thing it didn't let go
while Paula and I were on our 1900+ mile roadtrip over Thanksgiving or we'd
have found ourselves up a well known tributary without any means of locomotion!)

So, at 11:30 a.m., I rolled up my sleeves and started taking it apart.
Everything was going fine until I had one of the intake manifold bolts strip
(3rd from the back and, unfortunately, my drill won't fit in there) so it
looks like I'll have to remove the head and manifolds together.  It also
looks like it will be easier if I leave the turbo attached since getting to
the top-most bolts with the intake manifold attached is most likely
impossible (at least it is with any of the tools I have in my toolbox!) ...
I also suspect it's going to be a real bitch to lift because of the weight.
I'll probably end up putting hoist together rather than lifting it out by
myself ... any BTDT pointers will be appreciated.

While the timing sort of sucks, I'm taking the positive approach and looking
at this as an "opportunity."  Of course, my budget is somewhat limited since
my girlfriend and I are saving to buy a larger house but I'm open to
suggestions: Big valves?  Extrude hone the head?  Different cam?  Swapping
over to a hydraulic head?  Do I install my RS2 turbo or use Ben Howell's old
K26, with the Extrude-honed housing?  Decisions, decisions...

(And you know the worst thing about this?  I have a VDO water temp gauge
sitting at home in a box that I just hadn't gotten around to installing ...
I think I'm going to play it safe add a water pressure gauge as well!)

  
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   / |      _| o    | \       _| o   Jeffrey Goggin
  /__| | | / | | __ |  | | | / | |   audidudi@mindspring.com
 /   | |_| \_| |    |_/  |_| \_| |   http://people.delphi.com/audidudi
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