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Was a little worried that this project would be a bit out of place on here, but after asking Steve's (fatty) advice, I'll pop it on S2forum too. You can see how a dog of a car gets a little modified and some MUCH needed TLC after years of non-attention.
Nothing compared to some of the projects in here, but this is a little different in that it's being done on a strict tight ass budget.
It does have a turbo after all.
As a lot of us on here are discovering, the 80 TDi makes a sound economical buy these days. Was just after Christmas I thought again of a work hack again after my Audi 90 2.3e auto decided to munch it's autobox last year.
First off, excuse the name of the project, my other half thinks all diesels are "sooty" and has called this car that. It's sort of stuck, but I prefer the "chip pan stinker".
As we all know, this robbing no good government of ours is pushing the price of petrol up and up and up. The 2p rise planned for April is on top of the extra £3 billion our great chancellor Mr Darling (how gay is that name?) has raked in over the past 6 months due to the rise in the price of a barrel of oil, but will he scrap that 2p rise? Like **** he will.
When I bought my S2 Coupe 4 years ago, I could fill it's 70 litre tank for roughly £55, that same fill now costs me a nats nob off £84.
As I use the S2 to travel the 50 miles return trip to work 5-6 days a week, and with the S2 returning an average mpg of 25.5, it's getting a tad expensive.
What to do? Sell the S2? No way! why the hell should I?
It's a fabulous car to drive and I have no plans to get rid of her for a long time yet, though I have had my moments, usually in anger to do with daft silly failures.
Thought about a few various other cars, another cq20v, another 2.3e manual Coupe, a 90 20v quattro, another 80 V6 quattro.
But all aren't going to save me the money in fuel costs.
That means a diesel. Again I had some preferences to fill, main one being it had to be a B4. Had to be a TD"i" so it would "effortlessly" do the work run down the motorway every day.
Didn't fancy an Avant as I'm still only 37 and nowhere near needing or wanting to own a pipe and some tartan slippers to go with it. :mischeif:
That leaves the 80 1.9 TDi saloon.
Again, it needed to be (to me) not in perfect condition. As long as the mechanicals were fine, the bodywork could be scruffy. As long as it wasn't full of holes and every panel didn't have a football size dent, I'd do.
Step forward a user of audifans.net who was contemplating scrapping his old 80.
It sounded just what I wanted, as long as the rear ender it had had, hadn't been too bad.
In reality, apart from a some cracks to the paint in the middle of the rear bumper, that rear ender affected nothing else.
Front drivers wing has had a pattern part replacement in the past and is rotten now, full of holes on the arch. Thinking of pattern part replacement panels? DON'T! they are crap. The car should be laser red, but is the fabled laser pink. Not worried about that as I'll get it back to it's former glory.
I also wanted to experiment with alternative fuels. Pump diesel is refined petroleum and not what the inventor of this engine (Mr diesel) originally designed them to run on. Ok todays diesels are designed to run on pump diesel, but good old biofuel or SVO is the future.
I plan on running it on a vegetable oil and pump diesel mix.
I've already got vegetable oil in the tank now. I've let the tank run near empty and filled it with 30 litres of pump diesel and 30 litres of vegetable oil. I bought 50 litres of vegetable oil (sunflower) off a friend who works for a trade cash and carry for £22, that works out at about 45p a litre.
The car is running fine on this, no problems so far although to be honest I didn't expect any.
Ok, to the car itself. It was picked up on the 9th of feb from Coventry for a paltry £250. Caught the train to Tamworth, audifans.net owner and AOC cheif Andy picked me up and I headed home the next day.
The car came without a radio, so before leaving Tamworth a trip to Halfords and back saw me buy an new RDS tuner headunit with CD-R front loader for £40. Fitted in a crack by Andy, it's not as bad as I thought it would be for £40, radio reception is fine, plays CD's no bother and the sound quality is ok, but MILES away from the Becker headunit recently fitted to my S2, but then that was £300 so you'd expect some difference.
Drive home was great, the car is quiet, VERY economical, brakes are good, engine pulls very well, clutch good, gearbox good. The previous owner had had a bit of a problem with it late last year, he'd posted asking for a good midlands VW/Audi specialist and I'd directed him to Jason at the Lion garage. Jason replaced the diesel pump and also did the cambelt at the same time. So I'm not worried about the engine.
Monday saw me with a day off work, so first off was to change a few interior items. The ugly four spoke steering wheel had to go, in it's place a spare 3 spoke sport wheel was put on instead. Most of the small 5mm wedge bulbs throughout the car on things like the switches, the heater controls etc were out. I've replaced all of these, every last one in the car has been replaced even if it was working or not. This means they are all the same brightness and should in theory save me having to pull stuff apart again when another one blew.
Dash binnacle bulbs were out on all but two of them. So they've all been replaced too.
The interior was rank, so the seats and carpets were vacuumed (took "three" hours) and then cleaned with a vax and carpet shampoo. All the trim and dash was washed down with neat Megs APC and then treated to Aerospace 303 trim protectant.
A set of mats were added (ok, coupe ones, but I had them so used them)
A spare genuine used wing was given to me by Andy, it came from his recently sold 80 avant and is in emerald green. I'm also a big hater (personal preference don't forget
) of the standard front bumper, what possessed Audi to design it looking like a speed boats hull I'll never know, so that's coming off. In it's place a spare S2 front bumper from my collection (I have three of them, no sorry, not for sale either).
With that I'll have to change the headlights or I'll have four front indicators. So a set of face lifted coupe headlights will go in, with some clear indicators and the fogs in the new bumper.
I'll be colour coding the door handles and the wing mirrors, along with the black rubbing strips mid way up the doors. That leaves the rear bumper being removed and replaced with a S2 avant rear bumper recently sourced (Cheers Matt )
All above will be done by myself, apart from the laser red top coat on the wing and bumper as I can't get the finish I want. £40 is what a mate wants to do this, so I'd rather he did it, than me doing it and always hating it.
Lastly, the wheels. Currently it's on it's original steelies, 195/65/15 with no wheel trims either. I want alloys though. I have a set of 17" five spoke alloys that would look great, but the tyres are really best their sell by date and I'm not keen on 17" after been there with them on my S2. Though after driving this car for a while now, I think the 17's won't be that bad. The S2's suspension is SOOOO much harder than this shuggy boat 80's suspension.
So, as this is a cash saving car, I'm not about to fork out for some tyres. I have a spare set (two spare sets really) of 16" avus wheels with brand new tyres on them. But as we know, 5x112 avus don't bolt to 4x108 hubs. Five stud conversion? Nope, that'll cost money, is not exactly straight forward and so far, not what I want to do.
Hub converters? Hmmm? There is one place that sells them in Belgium, but at 300 euros a set + shipping they are a little expensive. Plenty of 4x100 to 5x100 or 4x100 to 5x130, even a 4x108 to 5x130.
If I can't get them easy, then maybe I'll make some.
Also looking into the possibility of turning my 4x108 hubs themselves into 5x112.
I know I know, some will cry and protest that your wheel will drop off, you'll end up upside down on the motorway with a central reservation barrier embedded in your head, but as the VW boys run with 4x100 to 5x112 or 5x130 converters without really bad things happening, I'll give one of these a shot. But not before carefully planning and weighing the idea up.
Ok, pictures so far.
This is the exterior as it was when I picked it up. Pretty faded with a few knocks and scrapes. Apart from the front driver wing (awful isn't it) they'll all repair with a little elbow grease and time. No rust anywhere else apart from that drivers wing.
Nothing compared to some of the projects in here, but this is a little different in that it's being done on a strict tight ass budget.
It does have a turbo after all.
As a lot of us on here are discovering, the 80 TDi makes a sound economical buy these days. Was just after Christmas I thought again of a work hack again after my Audi 90 2.3e auto decided to munch it's autobox last year.
First off, excuse the name of the project, my other half thinks all diesels are "sooty" and has called this car that. It's sort of stuck, but I prefer the "chip pan stinker".
As we all know, this robbing no good government of ours is pushing the price of petrol up and up and up. The 2p rise planned for April is on top of the extra £3 billion our great chancellor Mr Darling (how gay is that name?) has raked in over the past 6 months due to the rise in the price of a barrel of oil, but will he scrap that 2p rise? Like **** he will.
When I bought my S2 Coupe 4 years ago, I could fill it's 70 litre tank for roughly £55, that same fill now costs me a nats nob off £84.
As I use the S2 to travel the 50 miles return trip to work 5-6 days a week, and with the S2 returning an average mpg of 25.5, it's getting a tad expensive.
What to do? Sell the S2? No way! why the hell should I?
It's a fabulous car to drive and I have no plans to get rid of her for a long time yet, though I have had my moments, usually in anger to do with daft silly failures.
Thought about a few various other cars, another cq20v, another 2.3e manual Coupe, a 90 20v quattro, another 80 V6 quattro.
But all aren't going to save me the money in fuel costs.
That means a diesel. Again I had some preferences to fill, main one being it had to be a B4. Had to be a TD"i" so it would "effortlessly" do the work run down the motorway every day.
Didn't fancy an Avant as I'm still only 37 and nowhere near needing or wanting to own a pipe and some tartan slippers to go with it. :mischeif:
That leaves the 80 1.9 TDi saloon.
Again, it needed to be (to me) not in perfect condition. As long as the mechanicals were fine, the bodywork could be scruffy. As long as it wasn't full of holes and every panel didn't have a football size dent, I'd do.
Step forward a user of audifans.net who was contemplating scrapping his old 80.
It sounded just what I wanted, as long as the rear ender it had had, hadn't been too bad.
In reality, apart from a some cracks to the paint in the middle of the rear bumper, that rear ender affected nothing else.
Front drivers wing has had a pattern part replacement in the past and is rotten now, full of holes on the arch. Thinking of pattern part replacement panels? DON'T! they are crap. The car should be laser red, but is the fabled laser pink. Not worried about that as I'll get it back to it's former glory.
I also wanted to experiment with alternative fuels. Pump diesel is refined petroleum and not what the inventor of this engine (Mr diesel) originally designed them to run on. Ok todays diesels are designed to run on pump diesel, but good old biofuel or SVO is the future.
I plan on running it on a vegetable oil and pump diesel mix.
I've already got vegetable oil in the tank now. I've let the tank run near empty and filled it with 30 litres of pump diesel and 30 litres of vegetable oil. I bought 50 litres of vegetable oil (sunflower) off a friend who works for a trade cash and carry for £22, that works out at about 45p a litre.
The car is running fine on this, no problems so far although to be honest I didn't expect any.
Ok, to the car itself. It was picked up on the 9th of feb from Coventry for a paltry £250. Caught the train to Tamworth, audifans.net owner and AOC cheif Andy picked me up and I headed home the next day.
The car came without a radio, so before leaving Tamworth a trip to Halfords and back saw me buy an new RDS tuner headunit with CD-R front loader for £40. Fitted in a crack by Andy, it's not as bad as I thought it would be for £40, radio reception is fine, plays CD's no bother and the sound quality is ok, but MILES away from the Becker headunit recently fitted to my S2, but then that was £300 so you'd expect some difference.
Drive home was great, the car is quiet, VERY economical, brakes are good, engine pulls very well, clutch good, gearbox good. The previous owner had had a bit of a problem with it late last year, he'd posted asking for a good midlands VW/Audi specialist and I'd directed him to Jason at the Lion garage. Jason replaced the diesel pump and also did the cambelt at the same time. So I'm not worried about the engine.
Monday saw me with a day off work, so first off was to change a few interior items. The ugly four spoke steering wheel had to go, in it's place a spare 3 spoke sport wheel was put on instead. Most of the small 5mm wedge bulbs throughout the car on things like the switches, the heater controls etc were out. I've replaced all of these, every last one in the car has been replaced even if it was working or not. This means they are all the same brightness and should in theory save me having to pull stuff apart again when another one blew.
Dash binnacle bulbs were out on all but two of them. So they've all been replaced too.
The interior was rank, so the seats and carpets were vacuumed (took "three" hours) and then cleaned with a vax and carpet shampoo. All the trim and dash was washed down with neat Megs APC and then treated to Aerospace 303 trim protectant.
A set of mats were added (ok, coupe ones, but I had them so used them)
A spare genuine used wing was given to me by Andy, it came from his recently sold 80 avant and is in emerald green. I'm also a big hater (personal preference don't forget
) of the standard front bumper, what possessed Audi to design it looking like a speed boats hull I'll never know, so that's coming off. In it's place a spare S2 front bumper from my collection (I have three of them, no sorry, not for sale either).With that I'll have to change the headlights or I'll have four front indicators. So a set of face lifted coupe headlights will go in, with some clear indicators and the fogs in the new bumper.
I'll be colour coding the door handles and the wing mirrors, along with the black rubbing strips mid way up the doors. That leaves the rear bumper being removed and replaced with a S2 avant rear bumper recently sourced (Cheers Matt
)All above will be done by myself, apart from the laser red top coat on the wing and bumper as I can't get the finish I want. £40 is what a mate wants to do this, so I'd rather he did it, than me doing it and always hating it.
Lastly, the wheels. Currently it's on it's original steelies, 195/65/15 with no wheel trims either. I want alloys though. I have a set of 17" five spoke alloys that would look great, but the tyres are really best their sell by date and I'm not keen on 17" after been there with them on my S2. Though after driving this car for a while now, I think the 17's won't be that bad. The S2's suspension is SOOOO much harder than this shuggy boat 80's suspension.
So, as this is a cash saving car, I'm not about to fork out for some tyres. I have a spare set (two spare sets really) of 16" avus wheels with brand new tyres on them. But as we know, 5x112 avus don't bolt to 4x108 hubs. Five stud conversion? Nope, that'll cost money, is not exactly straight forward and so far, not what I want to do.
Hub converters? Hmmm? There is one place that sells them in Belgium, but at 300 euros a set + shipping they are a little expensive. Plenty of 4x100 to 5x100 or 4x100 to 5x130, even a 4x108 to 5x130.
If I can't get them easy, then maybe I'll make some.
Also looking into the possibility of turning my 4x108 hubs themselves into 5x112.
I know I know, some will cry and protest that your wheel will drop off, you'll end up upside down on the motorway with a central reservation barrier embedded in your head, but as the VW boys run with 4x100 to 5x112 or 5x130 converters without really bad things happening, I'll give one of these a shot. But not before carefully planning and weighing the idea up.
Ok, pictures so far.
This is the exterior as it was when I picked it up. Pretty faded with a few knocks and scrapes. Apart from the front driver wing (awful isn't it) they'll all repair with a little elbow grease and time. No rust anywhere else apart from that drivers wing.
One can be seen right down the bottom in the pic below. Just need to see if the plug for the switch is hiding behind the dash, but don't see why not.
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