Touching up Miss Cooper

[Nj]

block heater - consists of the heater itself, a T shaped screw thing and a long nut (and washers n' seals of course).




The issue is, the T shaped screw needs to go into the hole first at and angle and then you have to somehow slide the heater onto the screw. and there's no channel up the inside of the heater so just trying to get it through the hole is difficult. The hardest thing though is it's impossible to hold the screw in place. I tried needle nose pliers and even a thin bent wire. But whatever you use to hold it in place then obstructs the heater from moving into place.


I was about ready to throw stuff around and call in an expert when I had an idea though... I'm pretty chuffed with this to be honest. I slid a bit of heat shrink slid over the screw. Quite tight but not tight enough that it would break off when I pulled it off.


so I managed to get the T screw in, thread the heat shrink through the hole in the heater, then hold the heat shrink while I worked the heater into the recess. As I pulled the heat shrink out I kept going so it came right off and left about 5mm of thread poking out. I managed to wedge a small flat-bladed screwdriver against the thread of the screw to hold it in place and then gently got the nut started. phew!


After that I just left it in place until I ran the cables through, and then tightened it up.
I've installed the mini-socket in the left ring of the audi badge in the grill. Not sure if I'll regret that and end up buying a new grill. But it's a PITA being really low down on my A4 so I thought "fukkit" and did it. Interior heater is approximately in place and I will find a proper place to mount it when I have the trim under the glove box put back in. There's not much space on that side because of the Air Con gubbins hiding behind the tiny glove box. So I ended up running the cable through a large grommet on the driver's side and then over behind the centre console. I still need to get some silicone in there tonight because the grommet was partially destroyed (it's a big, fat, armoured cable).

In other news the floor's bloody wet on the passenger's side under the carpet. This explains the mould when the car was sitting for a while before it was transported from Wales to Germany. I know the window on that side isn't sitting quite right so I'll need to get the door card off and left the frame up a bit to get it fitting better. Kit replaced the bonnet pull cable grommet previously so that's not the problem (other side of the car too) so I'll need to check the seal around the air/heater intake too. First thing will be to get a heater inside and maybe a pile of rice to absorb as much moisture as possible

[Nj]

frost plus extractor. thank god I borrowed this because there was no room to swing a hammer and screwdriver to get the old frost plug out

[Henkjan]

can't remember that it was that difficult to get the heater element in place on my KK. probably managed to have the screw attaced to the heater?

[Nj]

can't remember that it was that difficult to get the heater element in place on my KK. probably managed to have the screw attaced to the heater?

There's a good chance that i'm an idiot Or because I was given the heater for free by a friend (saving me a lot of money) maybe the screw was shorter than it should have been for a7A. It came out of an AAN I think. But anyway, there was no way that T screw was going in while attached to the heater. It would have been easier to put my elbow into my ear

I now have the plug for my heating system fitted within the grill like this. high up will be handy. Not sure if it will annoy me later though so I might end up changing the grill again.


The interior cabin heater is also now installed. photo later. I went with a slightly chunky model because I got it unused from a guy round the corner for €8. I'll buy a slimline one later.

Other things...
New brake switch in. The old one had to be pulled apart and fixed in Germany so I knew I needed a new one at some point.


I was having trouble with the driver's door lock. Looks like the pin/button (whatever it should be called) should be going through the frame rather than being sandwiched between the frame and the door card. So I took the door card off, released the frame, repositioned it and put it all back together again. I will confess that I had trouble with the last allen head bolt hidden within the door handle at 1am after 6 hours working on the car


Question... what would someone put a replay on the back of one headlight and run a live connection from the battery to it? only on one side too. I assume the dangling wire was an earth that has come free.


I have a suspicion that this might be to blame for my water ingress. I have barely used the car since I got it and it has been well below zero for most of that time so the water inside must be there from its former life. I'm going to get it well dried out, get the door card off the passenger side and lift the frame up into position so the glass meets the rubber properly.

[Thuppu]

Yes, you have to put the T-screw in the block first and then attach the heater piece. Of course it's lot easier to fit it if the engine is out.

[Nj]

haha, yeah that does look slightly easier

I went for a drive this morning and unfortunately the interior heater isn't working and the engine is overheating so I'm guessing a still have a load of air in the system. I've tried running it with the cap off the expansion/coolant tank but i'm nervous about using the bleed screw on the hose that leads into the heater matrix in case it snaps.

Are there any alternatives?

[Henkjan]

you could try to carefully loosen the hose to the heater where it's connected to the pipes? assuming it is at a high point

[Nj]

cheers, yeah. i've been reading MANY threads related to bleeding and it seems that loosening the bleed screws while the system is warm may be the way to go, to reduce the chance of a breakage.

There was mention from someone that the system should be bled while the engine isn't running but I don't see how that would work. surely the system has to be pushing the coolant and air around to get it to bleed off? I'm off outside to do it now. -27 degrees. perfect day for a job that needs to be undertaken outside so I don't gas myself.

[Nj]

oh yeah. the lock on the driver's door keeps freezing. freezing closed or if I get it to pop then it freezes open. so I need to remove it and clean it, then lube it up with lock oil.

[Nj]

system bled. seems to be working nicely now. thank fack.

I took the door lock off, took off the rubber cover and cleaned it out totally, then applied a lot of lock oil and got everything moving. I put it back on the car a few mins ago but i've done something stupid and the lock mechanism is closed in such a way that I can't seem to open it up again. like a deadbolt being closed so that trying to close the car door just ends up in it bouncing back at me. I'm making a cuppa and defrosting my feet, the heading back outside again.

[Nj]

All sorted. The solution was highly technical and woukd probably take too long to explain. And probably nobody here would understand.
OK. I think maybe I was being a bit stupid. Frozen brain maybe I struggled for a bit but after some poking and tweaking realised that I had wrapped the release cable (that attaches to the release handle on the door card) around the wrong side of the lever that it attaches to in the lock. That was obstructing the inner workings somehow. I found that swearing and holding my face in my oily hands helped.

[Nj]

Oh yeah. When I bled the system the bless screw on the heater matrix intake didn't want to move so rather than break it I undid the hose clip and slide the hose right back. There's not much space for a hand in a glove there but I managed to slide it off a bit and then use my other hand to rev the engine up to about 2500rpm to get the coolant moving. When that seemed to be ok I slid the hose back and did the same with the bleed screw on top of the radiator. I was surprised by how much air/steam bled off to be honest. I must have had the system only half filled. There's a chance I will need to top it up a bit overbite next couple of days i guess.

[newsh]

Well done Noel! [emoji106]

[Nj]

Thanks. Always feels good to come out on top in a man vs machine content... For today anyway plenty more to do.
I need to take it in for its first MOT tomorrow (and get Finnish reg plates) so fingers crossed its all good. I then need to submit the certificate to the customs office, which they will use to assess the level of tax I have to most for importing it. So after buying the car, paying for parts and labour for several jobs before it left the uk (admittedly at mates rates courtesy of Kit), paying for transport to Germany, a few more bits and bobs, transport to finland, more parts (my own labour this time).... I will now have to pay the tax man too. I'm hoping for less than €1000. Oh yeah, plus about 160€ for the first MOT and registration.
After all of this I might be wondering why I didn't buy a car here in finland ok, I could only find one cq20v and didn't like it. But still. Can I do an online sanity check somewhere?

[Henkjan]

good progress here!