S2 Avant -93

[Antsa]

So the problem seemed to be the clutch slave cylinder this time. A little tight to get to but I managed to change it after all.

This image shows the front of the slave cylinder. It's like the ring that holds the piston has slipped out

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Fortunately I had ordered a slave cylinder already. It's kind of funny how Sachs sells their own item with Audi part numbers on them, just the Audi logo grinded off

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The bleeding was absolute pain, I probably went through nearly 2 litres of brake fluid trying to make it work. I have and eezibleed type bleeding tool, but that left the clutch spongy. Today I had a little play with syringes and that did the trick, I have firm clutch now


I also received my brake caliper from repair, finally (Big thanks to Alex)! The problems along the way were many, from Brexit to Covid and non-working customs declaration software... But it's finally here!!

So I had to make a pressure test to make sure the repair had worked using the equipment pictured No leaks! I hope I can paint these this summer.

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[Antsa]

I had a couple of days that I could spend doing some work on the calipers. So it was time set up a spray booth in my carport once again

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Epoxy primer on

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The epoxy was cured for a day before topcoat. Color is Porsche Guards red.

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After the topcoat was cured it was time to put the decals on. I carefully measured the right spot to put them on.

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Not too bad imo.

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Both calipers have decals. I had to have a little whisky to keep my hands steady during the process I know that these are not Porsche calipers, but it is a Porsche color and the white decals on red paint just look great

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After the decals it was time to assemble the calipers. I put a little caliper assembly lube on to the pistons

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And then slipped the dust boots on before inserting the pistons into the caliper.

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First one ready

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The other one is waiting for new pistons. From the 16 old pistons i was able to find 8 that could be used for one caliper rebuild. All of the others had some sort of scratches in them. New pistons and seals are over 400€ from Audi, so pretty cheap to rebuild used parts

[Antsa]

My car has been suffering a little from a smoking issue lately. It occurs when engine is warm and I have to stop for traffic lights. The blueish cloud that appears after a little while is little embarrassing So I decided that it was time to renew the valve stem seals. I've read that the valve guides are probably worn also, but changing them would require the head to come off and that's something I'm not willing to do easily, not yet.

My brake bomb was also on it's way out so I changed to vacuum assisted brakes at the same time.

The cams were taken out and wrapped in soft cloth and put in a cardboard box

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The bearing surfaces and caps looked good to me

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But some ***** has rotated the exhaust cam with pliers which has left some nice marks on the end of the cam. These will easily ruin the new seal for the camshaft. I protected the seal by wrapping thin tape to the head of the cam before fitting the seal.

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Some of the exhaust lifters had been changed sometime. First picture shows the old style bigger oil port of the lifter and bottom picture shows the new style. I replaced all lifters with new INA ones.

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More nice little surprises were up. The stud for the first bearing cap was ruined. Fortunately these were still available from Audi just 6€ a piece

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I used two nuts and pliers to got the old one out. It came out easy.


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After replacing the stud it was time to start replacing the seals. I used this tool to compress the valve springs.



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Everything went pretty smoothly thanks to the excellent guide that can be found here. Old seals had ID of 7mm where the new ones have 6.1mm. The valve cotters are a bit tricky to get in place but with help of a vaseline jar and a flat screwdriver I was able to put them in one by one. Until the valve spring tool slipped a one valve cotter went missing... I used several hours trying to find it without luck. Fortunately I had plugged every hole that leads into the engine so I was pretty sure that the missing cotter would not cause any harm in the future. The valve cotters were not available from the dealers but fortunately cs-parts.de had them in stock. So that was a few days delay to put my engine back together.

After the cotters arrived and installed the cams were put back in. Factory manual tells to put caps 1,3 and 5 in first but that was pretty impossible with the engine at TDC because the cam lobes are pushing the valves at cylinder 4 or 5. I put the first caps on and gently tightened them and rotated the cam from the pulley a little to be able to fit the rear caps.

Cams together with new lifters and chain are in.

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[Antsa]

While I was waiting for the valve cotters to arrive I started to work on the vacuum conversion. I had a picture with all the old stuff out but the forum refused to upload it

The booster nuts in the bulkhead behind the pedal box a little hard to reach but I got tip from a friend to use a little of tape on the swiveling head to keep it steady when reaching the nuts but still be able to flex a little.

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This shows my PAS hose. It's not oem anymore so I had a fitment issue right away when the booster didn't fit with hose like this.

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So I had to modify it.

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Trial fitting


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Master cylinder in and some brake lines were made


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Pas pump bracket was glass bead blasted and both the pump and the braket got the ACF-50 treatment


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I also had to source vacuum for the booster. Alex recommended the EVAP circuit so that's were I took it. I made a T-hose like this


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Which connects here


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Everyhing is starting to take shape. The car starts and runs smooth. It still needs the brakes to be bled before a test run


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[Bowie69]

Nice write up!

[John.]

I used this tool to compress the valve springs.

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Thanks for sharing

Any pictures of the tool in action? What are you compressing against?

Hope your lost collet has lodged itself somewhere safe !

[Antsa]

Thanks for sharing

Any pictures of the tool in action? What are you compressing against?

Hope your lost collet has lodged itself somewhere safe !

Sorry I have no pictures of the tool attached to the cylinder head, I was too much into the work to take any pictures

The two black brackets (at the bottom of the tools box) are bolted to the cam cap studs. After that the black bar is inserted through the holes of the brackets. Now you have a solid place to compress against. A hollow socket is inserted to the handle which allows to remove and insert the valve cotters.

Here's a picture from the diy guide, taken by Dima ABY

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[John.]

Thanks

[Antsa]

I bled the brakes today and took a little test run. I think I need to do the bleeding once more, the brakes do work and eventually the front wheels lock up when I really step on the brakes, but I still feel that the pedal goes too deep. I think that with the bigger MC with the stock brakes the effect would have to be just the opposite.

On the test drive the car also felt really jerky and revs would build up very slowly. I was a little frustrated. Everytime you try to repair something, a new fault would present itself. Fortynately this time the fault was all mine, one of the injector connectors were not pushed all the way in causing injector 1 not working. I just put it back and everything works as it should. The lifter noise went away after a while and the motor pulls as good as before the repair. Hopefully I will get the brake pedal feel that I am looking by bleeding the system once more

[Antsa]

I had one more issue left with the vacuum conversion: the cable for reservoir level sensor was too short



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So I had to make an extension.


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This is the outcome


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And here it is fitted


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[John.]

This is the outcome


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And here it is fitted


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Nice work.

[Antsa]

Nice work.

Thank you sir! Its a very basic cable assembly really

[Antsa]

The brakes were bled once more yesterday. This time I used the good old two person method which did the trick! Everything seems to be working again as it should and no more worries of the hydraulic assisted brakes

[Antsa]

So I've been driving the car a couple of weeks after changing the valve stem seals and turn out they were not the cause of my smoking issue So maybe worn out bores/piston rings or valve guides. I did a compression test just out of interest and got 11.5 - 12.5 bar on hot engine, so they are within spec. I also found that spark plugs on cylinder 1 and 5 are a little black when 2, 3 and 4 are white. Is it safe to assume that I have a problem in cylinders 1 and 5 based on the spark plug colors?


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[Antsa]

I has been a long time since last post (again). I did however take the car for mot a couple weeks back. The inspector told that my left (driver) side has an irregular beam pattern. So I took both headlights apart:

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This is how my left side reflector looked after a very gentle wash No wonder the beam pattern was wrong. But I got lucky and found a replacement here locally.

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This is missing the beam cutter but it was an easy job to take one out from my old reflector


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Audi Tradition had new glasses, seals and the rubber linings


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One curiosity from the old seals. The protection tape for the glue was never taken off. New seals don't even have glue on them.


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Time to put them back together


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And this is how it looks now. I made a finishing touch by using new Osram night breakers all around.


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