90q pre-inspection troubles

[tnas@euronet.nl]

Hi all,

For those of you who care, here's a recap of the problems I had with my car which should've prevented it from getting its APK (Dutch annual inspection, nearly as tough as the German TuV).

I'd had problems with an intermittent speedo for ages, which could be 'cured' by hitting the dash. Recently the instrument lighting gave up the ghost, too. I'd disassembled the dash umpteen times, cleaned all the contacts and tested the wiring with the help of several q-listers (thanks, guys!). Nothing obvious could be found. I ended up replacing the rheostat ($25, dealer had it in stock), because it smelled of burnt electronics- no dice. The speedo started working fine after that, though- one less worry. 
What did worry me was that after replacing the dash in the car, the Autocheck display said '51', which I took for some error code. A browse in the workshop manual later, this turned out to be a notification that all settings were OK- '5' for a 5-cylinder engine, '1' for petrol. This can be reset by pushing the rheostat knob in, switching the ignition on and releasing the rheostat. Phew.

I also put my car on the brake tester, because I'd noticed that the brake caliper had seized on the rear of the driver's side rear brake. You're allowed no more than 30% dfference in braking force between wheels on one axle. Luckily, even with the brake only working partially, there was no measurable difference.

For some time now, my car hadn't been cornering like a quattro should- it felt soggy on the passenger side rear, and I suspected a worn strut. The strut tester agreed, with readings LF66%, RF71%, LR69%, RR19%. I didn't have the time or the tools to do my own struts, and the only shop I trusted had full appointment books for the next three weeks. It wasn't leaking though, and my inspection had run out the 15th. Get caught without inspection (the police check this if they run your licence plate for whatever reason) and you're poorer by a considerable sum.

As I'd done no more than 3k miles last year, I'd decided to add some injector cleaner to my fuel and take my chances with the inspection- I could always deal with whatever caused it to fail at a later date, and get it reinspected. When the tester asked me if there was anything special he needed to look at, I told him my headlights might need adjustment- and kept my mouth shut about the rest.
Imagine my surprise when I came to pick up my car last night, and was presented with a brand-new certificate: the battery was loose (new clamps fixed that), there was a small hole in my exhaust (gun gum fixed it for the time being, I'll have to see about welding it later) and one of my headlights was out of adjustment (Duh! I'd adjusted it _loosely_ myself after fixing damage from a minor front-end prang...).  CO was excellent, with the cat (the original from '87!) still in fine shape. Anyway, Dfl 100 ($50) and I'm on the road again, with all the time in the world to deal with the above issues.

My luck was probably that the tester was too busy and didn't take the time to check the dash lights. Running a small country garage, he doesn't own a strut tester, so he 'inspected' it by bouncing the car, and checking visually for leaks. No problems there, obviously...
So my car decided to reward me for all this bad maintenance by refusing to start (see my message from this AM). It's never done this before, and I hope it'll turn out to be easy to fix. 

Tom
87 90q type 89, currently immobile