Pentosin Everywhere (adventures in Audi hydraulics)

[MSV96@aol.com]

Last week my car suddenly lost a bunch of Pentosin. Last Thursday night I did 
some tear-down to confirm what I needed. The rack, pump, rack pressure hose 
and bomb were all done aprox 40k ago for the PO. (I know...long enough to 
start having troubles again.)

I noticed the rack return line was trashed and I assumed it to be the 
failure. (I filled the reservoir with all the Pentosin I had remaining and 
looked for leaks and didn't see the BIG one then... :( more on that later in 
the saga). So, I ordered up the rack to reservoir hose, a couple cans of 
Pentosin, and a bunch of crush washers from our friend Rod at the Parts 
Connection (who I can never say enough kind words about...that man typifies 
customer service in the auto parts biz and has the best prices for us 
q-listers to boot). Since I had to remove the pressure hose to get to the 
return hose, I decided to have "The Hose Shop" here in Santa Cruz rebuild the 
pressure hose "just in case" even though it was only 40k old.

So, yesterday I take a vacation day to deal with this and a bunch of other 
little things on my car and delve in. So, I get all the hydraulics back 
together. (Those banjos on the rack are all the PITA people say they are 
too...electrical tape helps a lot!) I fill the reservoir and fire up the car 
with the front on stands to bleed the system. Looking down I see no 
leaks...feeling smug I think of this as a good sign. Uh, not so fast as I 
look underneath to see a stream of Pento$in pissing from under the car. Shut 
the car off. The stream was coming from the bomb's pressure line (the one 
from the pump to the bomb).

Panic sets in...I had really wanted to get this done in one day. I removed 
the line and took it to "The Hose Shop" where they tore it down. There is a 
flow restrictor inside they called "cute" ;-) Anyway, they were able to 
"rebuild" the hose (which was a semi-rigid plastic tube, now is a rubber 
hose...flow restrictor goes inside a coupling fitting so it is still there 
and working).

Got it all back together and all seems to be leak free now. Phew.

Some lessons learned:

Cost for rebuilding hoses _may not_ be much less than replacement. What you 
do gain is much easier service the next time and (probably) better 
reliability. I highly recommend it, even in my area where labor costs at the 
hose shop counter are high.

Do not believe the first leak you find! Be sure that you confirm all leaks 
prior to ordering materials. (Duh, my first rule of troubleshooting it to 
*always* verify the symptom...I thought I had in this case.) Extra crush 
washers don't hurt either...

Have plenty of Pentosin on hand. I ordered two cans and was sure glad I did.

That was my Tuesday. Hope this helps someone if they are playing with Audi 
hydraulics.

Mike Veglia
87 5kcstq