For the past few years I have had a nagging urge to build a lifted Audi. Two options stood out as appealing to me: a B3 with a 7A, or a B5 Avant with a manual transmission. I also didn't want to ruin a nice B3, so if I ended up with one of those it would have to be cosmetically challenged. I have been watching for about a year and a half but never seemed to find quite the right thing or have too many other projects going when I do find one.
Finally last week the stars aligned when a 1990 CQ popped up on the Motorgeek classifieds for $500. The car was located in the Bay Area, had been partially disassembled, robbed of some parts, and parked outside since 2006. The body doesn't have a straight panel on it and a combination of UV exposure and spots of moss have given the pearlescent paint a "unique" leopard print effect. On the bright side, it was a California which means little to no rust and it was mechanically pretty much all there and unmolested.
In other words: Perfect
I emailed the seller on Wednesday, and after talking a few times over the phone, getting some recent pictures, and settling on a price, I decided to go for it. I borrowed a truck and trailer from a Friend, convinced a different friend to go with me, and made plans to drive from Seattle to Palo Alto and back in a weekend. Somehow this seemed like a good idea.
Here are some of the pictures I got of the car before leaving:
We rolled in to the lot where the car had spent the last 10 years sitting and were pleasantly surprised that the PO (Robert) had spent the day washing it, cleaning it out, vacuuming water out of the carpets, and letting it dry out. Robert had also tried to bleed the clutch for us before we got there so the car could be driven onto the trailer, but couldnt get any fluid to come out with his vacuum bleader and the pedal was on the floor. Probably not the worst thing in the world since the timing belt is at least 10 years old. Ended up using his A4 avant and a tow strap to pull it up onto the trailer.
After 37 hours of driving I got home at 2 PM on Sunday with the car and immediately started tearing into it. I unlodaded al the loose interior parts, got it up on jack stands, and discovered the passenger floor had about 1/2" of water in it. Apparently there is a leak on that side LOL. I got that drying out with a shop vac and space heater, then started troubleshooting the cluch. I figured it had to be either a bad master or slave cylinder.
I was right. Here is what the master looked like:
[/url]Cleaned that all up, bled the clutch, and everything feels like it should! (short of actually driving it and testing it).
With that done I got all the AC stuff ripped out of the car. Don't need to be lugging that dead weight around with me.
I am also finding that there is going to be more fixing of electrical crap than I had anticipated with this. Amazing how things degrade from sitting and not being used. Many of the switches are going to need to be taken appart and have the contacts cleaned as they are inoperative.
I also sat down and made a list of work items yet to be completed. It a pretty long one, and I know it's nowhere near complete.
