Audi TT 225 - banger project

[B5NUT]

Most of the work on the car over the last few days has all been on the underside. Just finding any rust under the underseal and cleaning it away. I'm hoping in the next few days the underside of the car will be painted and any seam sealer reapplied. While that's been going on a few other jobs have been taken care off.

Tig welded new weld pins to the tank straps as the old ones had snapped off and the last garage just drilled a hole in them and shoved a self tapping screw through.
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Also had to tig a new weld pin to the axle guide as the old one had snapped off.
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Crack in the exhaust was also fixed.
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My tig welding still needs a massive amount of improvement.
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Still it's better that what was done to the old one.
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Have to say I'm glad I got the TIG welder. Ok so my welding is not the best at the moment, but I'm not doing any structural welding. I also got stick to death of going to places and asking for a simple welding job, and they would stand there sucking air through their teeth like I'd just rocked up with the titanic and asked for a patch job
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Bushes for the Axle guide through me a little. It appeared the old one were more of a rose joint type, with rubber seals at the end. These are NLA and have been for many years it would appear. Audi move to a more normal bush.
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To get these in the press and pull sleeve it came out, rather then using the hydraulic press. This tool that has saved me lots of time and money over the years, it was well worth the investment.
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What I don't like about the replacement bushes is that they are longer that the hole in the axle guide. So was a pain to try and get them even both sides.
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The hydraulic press was then used to press this bush in
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And the bearing
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Sill on the subject of bushes, I finally popped my poly bush cherry.. The original bushes are NLA and there appears to be no third party ones available. The original bushes themselves were in good condition, however they were plastic sleaved and were being distorted in the mount by rust, so had no choice but to press them out and go down the poly bush route.
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[Tractor Dave]

Nice work. I'm waiting for Black Friday. I fancy a tig

[B5NUT]

I need a new mig, I'm sick of the quality gasless welding.

[Tractor Dave]

I need a new mig, I'm sick of the quality gasless welding.

Very pleased with my Jasic pro mig. I'm torn between Rtech and Jasic tigs

[B5NUT]

rtech have a 10% offer on at the moment which would bring the MIG down to £540!

[Tractor Dave]

I think they do 20% on black Friday

[K Simmonds]

You did very well with those alloy air-con pipes Lee so I wouldn't knock your weld skills too much mate, TIG hates dirt so welds on the exhaust would be very hard to get looking tidy. That's really a MIG job, however I'd go with TIG over gas less MIG so you did the best with what you had.

Nice work on the interior, I quite like the red, wouldn't be my first choice but I think it would grow on me.

[B5NUT]

Thanks Kit. The interior is growing on me, and it's cleaned up nicely.

I've opened an account with BOC, and have ordered an argon mix cylinder which I will get next week. Going to order the regulator and convert the welder I have. If it goes Ok then I will keep it, if it don't then I will have just wasted money on the regulator as I will be able to reuse the gas bottle and the wire with a new welder.

While the diff was out of the car it was serviced. Used a heater to get the diff to 30deg as it need to been between 20-40deg for the haldex oil change.
Also got the diff level so it could be refilled with oil
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Received the brackets. These are available from VW classic which will ship to the UK.
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Couple of holes were drilled into the brackets and they were plug welded to the car
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Tried to remove the diff earth point. Even with a bit of heat it just snapped off the chassis of the car. It was rusted solid
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Cleaned up the area and used a stainless steal bolt, washers and nut to make up a new earth post
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Tested the post with the welder, when I was plug welding the brackets on the car. It just needs cutting down a little
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Over the last few days the rear underside of the car has been painted. It's had 2 coats of epoxy, then seam sealer where the old stuff was removed. Finally a 3rd coat of epoxy followed by a coat of base colour on the arches and then a couple of coats of 2K clear on the arches. Still need to paint some areas under the car with a 3rd coat but ran out of epoxy

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The finish is OK, but it's not the tidiest around where the brushable seam sealer has been applied.
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Downside to spraying the arches is all the masking that is required. My pet hate is masking up cars.
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Finally with the painting done parts are able to go back on the car.
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With old earth strap in bits, I wanted to find a better solution. So when I was taking some parts of a TT that was being broken, I picked one of the earth straps used near the battery. After a quick modification it looks like it will work quite nicely.
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[B5NUT]

Let me start this post with a rant. Who in gods name designed that rear suspension setup. It's been the biggest pain in the backside to rebuild of any Audi I've ever touched. Let me first start with the upper inner wishbone bolt, you cannot get the bolt in if the froward subframe bolts has been fitted. So I've wasted £14 on two bolts. I could have fitted one bolt from the other direction, however I prefer to fit bolts in the direction of travel, and the other way the diff gets in the way so not a chance on the other side.

The next steaming pile of dung is the change from the rose joint bushes to the hard rubber bushes. As the arms come in form a slight angle you could move the old bushes to meet the arm correctly. With the new ones you have to try and rotate the wishbones so they align, and then getting a bolt in to align with the holes. O the fun that was had! Ratchet straps to bring every thing together and then pipe wench on the wishbone to twist the wishbone so I could get the bolt through the holes. There has been a fair amount of paint scraped so will have to go around the touch everything up with epoxy.

Finally the shock bolts even they were a pain to get in. The first one you fit is easy enough but the second is a complete pain as the suspension is in full droop when I was fitting everything, so it putts the shock at a slight angle, but if you try and push the suspension to normal ride height then the shock want to push past the hole. Think I spent 30 minutes just getting one of the upper shocker bolts in.

Anyway rant over, think it took me about a day to get the hole rear suspension fitted. Never want to touch the backend again.


So another rubbish design means the backing plate has to be fitted before the hub is pressed in. The Axle guide already weighs a metric ton, so you have to be O so careful when trying to hold the axle to try and keep it square, get the hub to sit square to the bearing and use your third hand to operate the press leaver. It really is a two man job.
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With the axle rebuilt the hole rear suspension was loosely fitted to the car
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Then had to get the car on it's wheels.
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With a bit of extra weight added to the boot as the rollbar, exhaust, bumper, rear seats and some interior rims were all missing.
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This is all to aid the axle guide to be in the correct position, As I'm not using factory springs the information in Elsawin is not relevant. So with 1/2 a tank of fuel and the weight, I was able to put line across the guide to show to angle the plate should be. So with the wheel removed from the car and it back on axle stands the guide was lowered and the bolt tightened to 90nm while trying to make sure the plate does not move while your tightening the bolt. Once that bolt was done the car was back on it's wheels so all the other bolts could be torqued to the correct specification.
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Also replaced these vents. The old ones had rubber seals which when wet expanded and fail. New ones just have a rubber seal fitted.
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[Tractor Dave]

That's going to be a well sorted tidy car when your finished

[B5NUT]

It will be if it ever stops raining so I can finish it.

[B5NUT]

A couple of small jobs done today.

Changed the fuel filter, no idea how long it's been on the car. It's was unknown aftermarket, however when the last person changed it they only clipped in one of the pipes to the filter the other was just pushed on. New Bosch filter fitted.
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Also changed the pollen filter don't think it's been done in the last 10+ years
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[B5NUT]

Fitted the rear callipers I refurbished. Mainly blasted them, coat of epoxy and new seals.
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Just need to sort the brake pipe coming from the ABS pump to the flexi's.
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One of the final bodged jobs to fix. So if the weld stud fails the best option is to drill 1 or 2 holes in the chassis (Guess the first one hit something sold behind it) and shove a self tapping screw in there. I guess it's the usual with granges, get the car in and get it out as quick as possible!
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So welded up the holes and welded on a new weld stud. It will need to be cut down a little. Also applied a bit too much epoxy.
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For the TT Audi used these to hold the rear undertray trims in place, and they are awful to remove.
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I prefer to use these. They are used on the A6, A7 & A8 models to hold the trims in place. As they are plastic they won't rust solid and cause the pins to snap off.
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I guess it's just a cost saving measure. The metal clips are about 50p each where the plastic nuts are about £1.50 each! Although I'm sure they are both just pennies to Audi.

[Tractor Dave]

Those calipers look amazing

[newsh]

Those calipers look amazing

They do, what paint are you using? A rattle can or two- pack in a gun?
I've got a new eBay rescue bike project on the go and it's going to need some parts painting!