The Project Pad

Hey everyone!

Some churn has been occurring lately with vehicles in the O’Hara residence. My Dolphin Gray 2002 A4 1.8T will be for sale shortly and I had intended to sell it in order to get a ‘fun’ car for my wife, but the perfect candidate decided to show up before I had a chance to sell. She’s had enough of watching me create something fun to drive and she wants her own! I’m pumped! I’ve converted her to old German iron 8)

She picked up this 1996 Audi Cabriolet yesterday in CT that I found on craigslist. I wasn’t particularly looking for an Audi cabriolet since they’re all automatic and 2wd, but when I saw this 5spd example during my random craigslist trolling, I was immediately interested and my wife even more so! I’m completely taken by the car, not to mention my wife. The top works, all the windows, the transmission is a modified quattro unit for FWD and the engine is smooth. It needs plenty of body work, but the car is rust free. Even the e-brake works! I’ll add details later, but here are some photos.

















Meeting the 200...


And in true Audiholic form, I bought parts before we actually had the car.


Plan is to get this into daily driver shape quickly. I'll update with progress as it goes along!

Awesome!!! My lady wants a VW/Audi vert too, lol. I'm thinking early 90's VW Cab and Megasquirt

V6 powa! Nice car. Gotta have a solid VAG family :-)

Very interesting car! Looking forward to updates on this

Thanks for the compliments! Allie appreciates it Now with front bumper and clean headlight glass! The glass previously was spray smoked from the inside. Here's a comparison





New serpentine belt and battery. Ready for some street time!

It appears the tachometer is reading 1000rpm low... Any insight? It idles at 0 and I shift at 2000 but it feels and sounds like 3000.

Some more body work in prep for a plasti-dip spray by rubber-wrap.com switched out the beat up stock fenders for some that were straight. Swapped in the amber corner lights figuring the black painted ones probably wouldn't pass inspection.

Anyone have a passenger side fog light?





And a quick clip of the top! I never realized how classy these Audi hydraulic tops were...
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_IRyu45DtUI[/youtube]

Was just about home and the engine went dead.... Timing belt is no longer with us. Too bad, the kit is supposed to arrive on Monday.

Anyone have heads kicking around? I'll see what the scrap yard wants for a set tomorrow, but wanted to see if someone could help out.

Aw man that sucks! Terrible timing (pun intended) with the kit on it's way and everything. I really like the car though, those are one of the only convertibles I'd consider besides a Miata and unobtanium stuff. Would be better with quattro, I mean, she wants a project car after all.

she does want a project!! come get this complete AEB, cheap for you! mega cheap

My dad's got a v6 a6 parts car... Same engine?

If its a 12v V6, should work

I will have a spare 3B

amd is the best wrote:I will have a spare 3B

haha, it has been suggested I pick up that lago 200 20v sedan on craigslist for a swap...

Can't afford that now though, the scrap yard only wants $75 for a set of heads

Do the scrap yard, I'm sure it'd cost that to ship them from here.

WOMBAT wrote:If its a 12v V6, should work

arent the cranks different between autos and standards?

The autos have a bushing inserted in the end of the crankshaft. It can be cut out for use with a manual. I had to do that when I did the auto to manual conversion on my cab

Dug into the cabrio last night. Verdict? Two exhaust valve took a hit so I dropped both off at VT Engine and also dropped off the alternator for repair (bad bearings) at Auto Electric. Just waiting for phone calls now to pick them up. Up next is control arm bushings on the passenger side along with the sway bar link and rebuilding the power steering rack. That one should be interesting, never rebuilt a rack before!

Also, check out the lifters. They look horrible and it looks like one of them might have taken a hit while the cam lobe was down. The pitting is outrageous and the cams had mild pitting on the contact surface too. How does that happen? In any event, I'll probably go grab lifters and cams out of a 12v A4 at the junk yard. Would anyone reuse these things? I can't bear the thought of intentionally re-installing these.

Started with a running motor..

Some time later


The nasty lifters

Good God there is no way in hell I would put those back in the motor. Good thing there are plenty of 12v's in the junkyard usually. There must have been something banging around in there... maybe metallic stuff in the oil? Otherwise, it could be a chemical thing... in either case, I'd want to take a look at your main bearings and such too...

ew, no fkn way! Definitely take the pan off and have a look around. Yikes.

Yea I hear you.. It looks like they were rusting for a while and then the motor was run and the oil cleared off the oil. The motor ran very smoothly and quietly though.

Run it till it dies, then motor swap. Allie wants a V8!

I got a 40v with 50 something thou on it. we could figure out how to get it to you cheap somehow. I was going to shoehorn it into my 95 90q but lost motivation. If that interests you at all, leme know. I really want to see this thing go into a small chassis car.

scubadave wrote:I got a 40v with 50 something thou on it. we could figure out how to get it to you cheap somehow. I was going to shoehorn it into my 95 90q but lost motivation. If that interests you at all, leme know. I really want to see this thing go into a small chassis car.

That would be awesome! Definitely going to wait until spring to do anything though

Nice work! Yeah, those lifters are toast.

Love the updates/progress. Keep it up, Casey

Steering rack was throwing fluid so I tried rebuilding it with a seal kit. I didn't have all the proper tools namely a slide hammer and internal puller to get the main seal out and back in correctly, but it's back together and I hope it doesn't leak... Heads and alternator should be ready early in the week. I hope it's driveable by Thursday.






Back together.. Hope it works!