Project 1995 ABY. Getting an S2 onto irish roads.

[irishs2]

Ok, Got my 1995 S2 just less than two weeks ago. Knowing full well from my lurking here that I will be digging deep in more ways than one. This is a great forum , I may not say much, but most of my questions are answered by the search function


I decided to collect it by transporter, as the guy selling it said it was idle for a while, and I heard some brake scraping on its test drive.


Interior is perfect, but radio is the sony unit, aparently standard on uk cars, so I will replace that with a gamma and phatbox. Radio wiring is untouched.


First order of business was check out the front axle see what the scraping was all about.

While I did notice that the brake fluid res. was full, with a top up bottle in boot, (that should set alarm bells going and was a bargining point)


I couldn't have imagined it was this bad, maybe from uk salty roads and utter lack of maintainance in the last 2 years just added up to a load of rust. ARB tie rods are also shot. I changed these on an 80 years ago, went from steel to plastic. I was suspicous at the time. Didn't expect to see plastic ones on the S2.


Porsche caliper upgrade is on the way, but I really want to compare stock to upgraded so I ordered a set of standard pads.


Is that a piston in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me



Seeing this ammount of neglect, I had to give the engine a once over, a quick check on the VAGCOM reported no errors and it purrs like a kitten. I want to keep it
that way so I have to change the cam belt, even though I have a docked saying belt was done at 138K and there is now 149k on it now, the belt really needs to be redone.


Especially the bottom belt pully. Front bumper was loose, bolts were not even tightened up, and meet more and more of them that were loose as I made my way into the bay.







Aux rad was changed 30k miles ago, and although looks bad it may be just be exterior surface corrosion from being idle. Not too worried about the aux rad anyway.


IC looks straight but while there is surface corrosion on the outside, I am more worried about loose bits of oxide from the inside working its way into the engine.


Air baffle/guide to the oil cooler looks quite bad , repair may sort it out. Also got a oil leak coming from a sender. My todo list is getting quite large.


Heat guard is rusted quite a bit, seems to be the order of the day. Then I spotted this. (oil feed or return to turbo)


I would really like to replace those bolts, They could snap on removal, maybe I could extract the stud with a dremel I kid, I kid.


And an oil leak from a sender


And really really rusty allens on the main pully



Anyway this is day 1 and 2 of the strip down, cam belt and gear is on order from the stealers, he got quite excited when I mentioned I was looking
for parts for an S2, I could hear whispering in the background, 'whats an S2?' . He also complimented me on my accurate list of cambelt parts thanks to Pauls pdf.

Funny irish facts.

A8 314mm discs are €122.50+21.5%vat each not for the pair. I laughed in his face at that one.
Original front pads are €169+vat, €69+vat for rears. Again I was in stitches.
RS2 caliper adapters €160+vat for pair.

[S2central.net]

let me boost your confidence by saying all of that looks pretty normal if the car has sat for a long time and/or seen little in way of regular maintenance.

[macspring]

Not perfect, but not too bad,

If you can use the tools as well as you use the camera, you should not have problems.

Kind regards.

[Liam Gallagher]

nice car, good luck.

[mcandmar]

You didnt waste much time getting stuck in, nice looking car too, look forward to seeing this progress. That rusty nut on the turbo is incredible, never seem one like that. I would be afraid to even look at it incase you end up with a sheared off stud stuck in the turbo.

Prices seem about right for a main dealer, 323mm A8 disks are €214 from Otto, and GSF do Pagid pads for the stock calipers ~€50-€60. I would also highly recomend you sort out the seal from IC to crossmember, your looks like it might be leaking. Have a search for MarkH mod on the forum.

Out of interest how much was the VRT when you imported it?

Cheers, Mark

[irishs2]

Thanks guys.

I didn't import it myself, judging from docs it was imported about 2 years ago, guy got caught driving it on english plates, forced to VRT it, and then couldnt pay the back tax. VRT was €1500.
Then the idle period began.

The allen holding the IC to the cross member on the right is siezed, it doesnt suprise me at all that its blowing, as it probably was not tightened last time it was off. MarkH mod seems to be the business to sort that out.

Yea those oil feed bolts have me worried. Afraid that it sheers if I attempt to take it off, or rust through if I leave it on. The worst case is rusting through and failing while driving and starving the turbo of oil, not to mention the mess

[irishs2]

The guy selling it also mentioned that the clutch failed while he was driving it and, paid 1500 to sort it out. Cant sell a car with no clutch. I have a problem with this though, there are no receipts of the clutch work, and the pedal is catching a bit low (full grip at maybe 2/3rds pedal down). So either the clutch was done and slave was put back wrong or has been damaged in some way. Or the slave went and was repaired and now the clutch is on the way out. Clutch work was not included in price of car, and was discounted and marked as needed to be done at time of purchase anyway.

[haaran]

For the Mark H mod, does the IC just slide/pull down after undoing the two bolts on the left?

[irishs2]

There is an allen bolt with a rubber mount on the right that has to be removed, to get the IC seperate from the cross member, as well as one of the bolts if not both on the left.

[haaran]

And then do you just slide the reducer over the IC and the black pipe coming out of the cross member, push it back together, tighten up the jubilees, fit/tighten the bolts back up and job done? (And top-up any coolant I guess??)

[irishs2]

Pretty much,except there this no coolant involved.

[haaran]

Cheers....help really appreciated.

As you can tell...i'm new to this game!!

[mcandmar]

If the clutch bite point is high up its usually a worn friction disk. If the bite point is close to the floor its usually a nice new friction disk. I had great fun with my avant as the slave cyl failed a few days after i bought it, that caused a slowly sinking pedal that sat a few inches from the floor. Access to it is not easy, one of the more annoying jobs to do. 6speed master cyl also have a weak point on the connecting rod from pedal to cyl, they have a tendency to bend like a banana.

For €1500 it would have to have a new friction disk/pressure plate was fitted, or the guy was ripped off big time!

[irishs2]

Ok thats good news



Power Steering pump has a bit of wear , and good bit of float and is rubbing off the belt cover.


I will have to get it off the axle stands before undoing the crank bolt, so I may wait until my pads arrive before proceeding.

[irishs2]

Good news, Managed to get the flowered allen bolts out of the oil filter bracket.

Before


After

While trying to line up the tdc on cam and flywheel, it became apparent that the belt had skipped a tooth, with tdc lining up that little bit later than the flywheel.
That crank bolt is a wheure to get off. Got the crank locking tool but apparently it was for the non-air con version. So I had to modify it slightly.








Tightening requires an awful lot of trust in that little crank bolt. 200nm +180degrees.
Do you like my rat look extension bars