Nibbler’s Universe: past and present: I’ve bought a car. Today I will pick it up!

[Nibbler]

Had the Audi 100 2,3 in for a wheel alignment today. When I phoned up the boss Peter at Däckhuset in Kalmar to ask if the car was done he told me that the wheel alignment went fine but the car was twitchy during the test drive. -There is still something wrong, it feels like the steering wheel I loose or there is something wrong with the steering rack…  guess what…

 

This car is full of surprises!!!

[Dyslexic Viking]

I don't know how to react to that, but glad it was discovered now and not when the steering wheel fell off while driving.

[High Jetter]

2 hours ago, Nibbler said:

Wasn’t he more into steam engines? 

Yes, a pioneer.

[Nibbler]

Audi 100 Diesel with bonus Toyota Aygo news : PARTY!!!🎉🎂🐈‍⬛🧁Short story: Oil pressure problem on the Audi Diesel is probably down to an electric gremlin.
 

The long story: The generator needs a little blip on the throttle to start charging. I’ve had similar behaviour on cars before so I’m not panicking about it. Yesterday when Mrs Nibbler, my sister and I was out flea market hunting I suddenly noticed that I didn’t get a low pressure warning light and beep when I gave the engine some revs immediately on start up. When I didn’t apply some throttle i got a warning light and the buzzer of doom started making noise. So I’m 94,46 % sure that it’s down to the voltage in the electrical system. Lower voltage = alarm. Car is charging immediately = no alarm. 

The grey Aygo made a visit to Toyota in Kalmar and they told my wife that it sets fault codes due to the cam chain being shot. Changing it would of course be hilariously expensive. I was not having it, so I read up on the problem and found out that it can be an oil related issue. So I gave the engine a new filter and some 5/30 and behold,  the car has now done over 1000 km without any fault codes. I’m not 100 % sure yet that it’s completely fixed but I’m up to around 92,8 on the old certainty scale. 

Bonus picture of all the Audis and the grey Aygo.
 

 

[Nibbler]

Those of you who followed my latest car collection might remember the tow cars thirst for oil. I had to stop every 45 minutes to top up the oil in the old VW T4. I had bloody nightmares about why, but it turned out to be a cheap fix. 

The reason was a leaking oil pressure sensor. So I changed the washer and everything now seems fine. Hope it stays that way.

[Nibbler]

So this is my latest purchase. A 1986 Audi 100 Avant Turbo diesel with over 310 000 miles (500 000 km)  on it. I strongly suspect that this is an old taxi. It has no smoking signs, holes after extra equipment on the dash and some extra relays. The engine is a non runner.

If you missed out on the collection thread check it out as it features some drama with the tow car. 

I found this car on marketplace to the owners surprise. Because she put it up on a Swedish sale site called Blocket. If I’ve known that things would have been easier. But the car would probably been sold to someone else, because now started a wild chase searching for all her Facebook accounts and writing to her without any answers. Without that chase I would have just disappeared in the vast number of people writing to her on Blocket. Anyhow, I got a bit desperate and started researching the former owner who turned out to be her son, and there I got a lucky break. I found a telephone number on some sport club’s website and sent a text message and I got an instant reply. It turned out that I wasn’t the first one to reply to the ad but due to a death in the family she hadn’t replied to anyone. The phone number now belonged to the owner so after a bit of confusion I realised that I wasn’t talking to her son. During our conversation she started to shift and suddenly said that she didn’t want to sell the car 🤯 At this time I i had enough.

A few days later I got a new message and a question if I wanted to see pictures of the car. I told her yes, but only if the car was still for sale. After that it was smooth sailing, we agreed on a pick up date and the rest of the deal went fine. Both mother and son turned out to be likeable and helpful.

The former owner has done tons of work on this fine performance machine to get it running. New bearings, piston rings, some work to the head including grinding the valves. New oil squirters and tons more. But the biggest expense has been on the Bosch VE pump. It measured perfect when on a test bed except for low rpms, so the former owner started to change stuff in the pump, rotor head being one thing. No improvement, engine still wouldn’t run. It would ignite and then stop. 

The former owner also told me that this symptoms came suddenly and the car went from fine to crap in one second. This made me suspect the pump timing and this is still my theory. After finding TDC the pump seems to be around 90 degree out, but when the crank is rotated 360 degrees it seems to line up reasonable right, maybe just a teeth out. You need to look at the camshaft as well and when the camshaft is not touching any of the valves on cylinder one the pump is completely wrong. But I’m no expert. 
 

I also changed the bonnet to a rust free one and fiddled a bit with the interior and wheels.

[Nibbler]

Audi 100 2,3E: car has a noisy generator so I ordered a new one from oligarcho-doc. First plan was to just change the bearings but when they had a good deal on a complete generator I bought one of those instead. Generator arrived and of course they sent me a bloody Ridex that doesn’t fit. I discovered that when I got the old one out…

[Nibbler]

Audi 100 Turbo diesel: checked the camshaft timing. No problem, everything looks fine. 

[Nibbler]

Continued with locking the diesel pump into place and then I gave the belt pulley for the pump the 100 NM treatment, rotated the engine 720 degrees by hand and then tried to start the car. Nothing, just grey smoke and a smell of diesel…

I haven’t done a precise adjustment yet, but I think I should have gotten something. 

So my theory right now is that the pump timing is 360 degrees out. 

[Nibbler]

Audi Turbo Diesel: this morning I was really motivated to get this thing running. Rotated the diesel pump pulley 360 degrees, locked it in place and retightened everything. I gave it a shot of starter gas and it fired up!!! After a few seconds I even got it to idle, it runs rough and smokes greyish so the pump timing is off. But I was over the moon! 

Then it started to rain and I went and bought some coolant instead. So if the weather is cooperating tomorrow I will give the cooling system a flush and then time the pump.

My bottle of engine motivator committed suicide. 

Absolutely pointless screen dump of a movie containing a running diesel engine. 

[Rightnider]

That’s fabulous news!
It looks very tidy in the engine compartment as well. 

[Nibbler]

6 hours ago, Rightnider said:

That’s fabulous news!
It looks very tidy in the engine compartment as well. 

Not as tidy as the 430 000 km 2,3E. 

[Nibbler]

Audi 100 Turbo Diesel: Timed the pump today. 

Tools getting prepared.

First reading. Injection point was too late.
 

After a bit of faffing about with the belt and pulleys to give the pump more space to move, I achieved the by Volvo established value for the D20 of 80. D20 is what Volvo called this engine when it lived in the 5-cylinder version of the 240. Must be a rare combo as it was only for the Finnish 🇫🇮 market.
 

Engine now runs fine, but it’s still hard to start. Glow plugs are the suspect, and that is after a conversation I had with the former owner.

[Nibbler]

Audi 100 TD: Did a coolant change. From whatever was in it to G12+. Then after 15 minutes on idle to hopefully get all of the air out of the system I took the car out for a spin. For the first time since 2016. Engine felt strong with quite a bit of enjoyable turbo lag. Gearbox felt better than any of the 3 other Audi C3s I own. Brakes felt good and there wasn’t any black smoke. Issues were found, one headlight needs a new bulb, electric cooling fan is not working and the valve cover gasket is leaking.
 

As expected, after the test drive I was as happy as a pig in shit! So I celebrated with filling the ugly hole in the dash with an old Philips head unit and then I just sat in the car for a while listening to Motörhead thru the original speakers.

Plan now is car inspection within 2 weeks. What could possibly go wrong with that plan…

[Rightnider]

Wonderful news! Looking forward to a test drive. 

[Rightnider]

And I’d probably set the electronic climate control to 19.5 degrees. Auto. 

[Nibbler]

Inspection time! I’m nervous.

[Rightnider]

Give us the results!

[Nibbler]

15 hours ago, Rightnider said:

Give us the results!

Pass! With some remarks about broken lightbulbs and an oil leakage. Car feels really solid and drives really well. Looks like crap thou.

[Nibbler]

Audi Turbo Diesel: before the car inspection I had a bunch of work to do on the car. I got a third round of Covid with high fever and terrible headache, so when I was feeling better I had to work fast.

The former owner had made a quite clever new electrical system for the main light. The relays a big enough for additional lightning and he put in connectors for that. I just had to finish the job.

New battery was fitted. It was a bit too big, so I had to manufacture a new battery fastener. The battery is really tucked in tight under the air filter.

The battery is fitted really close to the turbo and unfortunately the heat shield was missing. So I made a new one, without any time spent on the finish…except a bit of paint.

I also changed the sun visor fasteners. Available on Ebay.

I also sorted thru all the boxes that came with the car.

Been using the car quite a lot the last few days. Today I was flying along the E22 at 80 km/h with a trailer behind me when I suddenly heard a thump under the bonnet and then the alarm went. 15 minutes later and with a new generator belt fitted I was on my way again.

[Nibbler]

Audi 100 Turbo Diesel: treated the engine twith new oil and filter. Probably no oil change since 2016 and the engine had been subjected to quite a lot of cranking over with a wrongly adjusted diesel pump. So the oil was probably quite rich on diesel content.

As a thanks for my concern over its well being it started to leak diesel from one of the injectors and thru a high temperature warning in my face on my way home from work yesterday. 
 

The high temperature warning came off when switching the car off and then start it again. But the car was a bit low on coolant, maybe an air pocket or it’s loosing coolant somewhere…. Just great! Diesel leakage may hopefully be from a return line. But it’s hard to tell.

The rest of the Audi fleet is doing quite well. 2,0 D is due for an MOT and the 2,3E still runs well when it’s up to temperature. It runs quite rough when cold so I hade a poke around and found one massive and one potential vacuum leak. Fixed those but the lumpy running when cold did not disappear completely.

[Asimo]

The battery was under the rear seat in my 1988 Audi 100 2.3E saloon. Is yours different because it is an Avant or because it is a Diesel, or even because mine was right-hand-drive?

[Nibbler]

4 hours ago, Asimo said:

The battery was under the rear seat in my 1988 Audi 100 2.3E saloon. Is yours different because it is an Avant or because it is a Diesel, or even because mine was right-hand-drive?

On both my diesels the battery is placed underneath the air filter. On both my petrol powered ones the battery is placed on the right side just in front of the windscreen, and I guess that must be a bit inconvenient on a right hand drive car.

[Nibbler]

Aygo number one has a rusty sill. 
 

Easy fix! So I started changing the piece that is rotten. Wasn’t planning on saving the car, just wanted to give it 14 more months on the road.

After 2 hours of work and while beating the new piece of steel with a hammer a piece of the floor fell out. So I poked my finger in the new hole. Within seconds I felt the unpleasant sensation of crumbling metal, a 40 centimetre long hole had opened up. Had a poke on the other side and it’s not as bad, but bad enough… 

The hole is located between the sill, the mounting point for the rear suspension and what I think is the mounting point for the rear seat. So a decision was made, I will take it in for MOT. Get one more month of driving out of the car and then scrap it and find something else 😥

[Nibbler]

So the red Aygo was in for the Swedish equivalent to your MOT the other day. The poor car was even worse than I expected. I knew that it would fail the inspection , but it was way worse than I anticipated. There was holes everywhere. 
 

First car we checked out was a high mileage first generation Auris 2,0 Diesel but it was too rusty and had bald tires. The seller got angry when we didn’t want the car even though she cut the price with 1/3 and spend the rest of the day sending angry messages to my wife…

Then this appeared on marketplace: a low spec Avensis 1,8 petrol located just a few kilometres from where we live. Also with quite a lot of miles on it, bald summer tires and with some dents but with a bodywork in much better condition than the Auris so a deal was made. 

[grogee]

8 minutes ago, Nibbler said:

So the red Aygo was in for ours equivalent to your MOT the other day. It was even worse than I expected and it of course failed. I knew that it would, but this was way worse than I anticipated. There were holes everywhere. 
 

First car we checked out was a high mileage first generation Auris 2,0 Diesel but it was too rusty and had bald tires. The seller got angry when we didn’t want the car even though she cut the price with 1/3 and spend the rest of the day sending angry messages to my wife…

Then this appeared on marketplace; a low spec Avensis 1,8 petrol located just a few kilometres from where we live. Also with quite a lot of miles on it, bald summer tires and with some dents but with a bodywork in much better condition than the Auris so a deal was made. 

Welcome to the Avensis club of winners! I'd really like an estate but my hatch is pretty spacious with the seats down. 

Check my thread for rust proofing - mine was beginning to go ahead of the rear wheels. Rear suspension rots too but replacement parts are available. 

It's boring of course but I do like the way mine just eats up the miles and doesn't complain about it. 

[Nibbler]

4 hours ago, grogee said:

Welcome to the Avensis club of winners! I'd really like an estate but my hatch is pretty spacious with the seats down. 

Check my thread for rust proofing - mine was beginning to go ahead of the rear wheels. Rear suspension rots too but replacement parts are available. 

It's boring of course but I do like the way mine just eats up the miles and doesn't complain about it. 

Thanks! Boring and eats miles sounds perfect! I will check your thread.

[grogee]

1 hour ago, Nibbler said:

Thanks! Boring and eats miles sounds perfect! I will check your thread.

Page 26:

 

 

[Nibbler]

Fleet update: 

The red Aygo made its last day as a daily driver on the 4th of October. For many people it’s just an old Toyota. But for me, it was the car that made me enjoy driving again. It will be truly missed. My wife took one last picture of FWO outside of the scrapyard 😥

Toyota Avensis 1,8 Entry as it’s called in the papers has been put into service. But first I did try to rustproof it or at least slow down the corrosion. Drenched the undercarriage with a home made concoction and let it dry for almost two weeks. Since then we have done around 2500 quite boring miles. But it’s practical and I must say I quite enjoy to have a cassette player again. 

[Rightnider]

Sad emoji was in reference to the fate of the Aygo.