New project - 1996 Audi 80 Coupe 2.6 V6. Been off the road for 15 years...external combustion!

[Blake's Den]

Firstly I need to state that this isn't my car but I have been asked to get it into a running state.

So, whats the story? This is my brother in laws car. He was using it as his daily driver but it was costing him a lot to run so he just parked it up and bought something cheap. That was 15 years ago! It has survived quite well considering no preperation was done prior to parking it up. All four tyres were flat and badly perished, there were two trees grwoing through the back bumper (!) and it looks like a mouse had been living in the airbox.

Attempts to get in running on site identifed that the fuel pump wasn't working so I winched it onto my trailer and dragged it home with the Defender.

After eventually finding the fuel pump I ended up bodging in a spare pump that I had from my Santa Fe. This worked great, so much so that I had fuel pouring out under the car! A quick investigation found a damaged fuel line which I quickly bypassed. Once there was fuel at the engine it fired up straight away.

All is not well though. There is a really loud tappety noise coming from what I think is the left bank of cylinders. I haven't investigated this further yet but I'm hoping that it is just a stuck valve or a dodgy hydraulic tappet.

The car is in surprisingly good condition with minimal rust underneath. The sills are solid and even the interior has held up OK. I don't think that it will take much to get this back on the road if the engine problems are nothing major. It is my understanding that these ABC Audi engines are fairly robust.

Here is the video of the car. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe etc.

 

[DaveDorson]

Have fun doing the cam belt.  They're about 100 miles long..

 

Love these cars mind.

[Alusilber]

I do like a B3 Audi Coupe. Pretty thin on the ground these days sadly.

[Blake's Den]

3 minutes ago, Alusilber said:

I do like a B3 Audi Coupe. Pretty thin on the ground these days sadly.

It is a smart looking car. Surprisingly long too, I'm guessing that's because it is based on the floor pan of the saloon.

I can't remember the last time that I saw one on the road.

[Six-cylinder]

I liked mine a lot when I had it, a 2.6 manual.

[Blake's Den]

3 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

I liked mine a lot when I had it, a 2.6 manual.

Oooff! That looks smart 🙂

[stuboy]

 

[Six-cylinder]

How I came to own an Audi 2.6 Coupe.

I had bought a 2.6 Manual Convertible of the same era non running. The previous owner’s son in law, a Mechanic with a Honda dealer had taken the fuse box apart and a few other things. A local garage agreed to take it on for me but were baffled by the mess and I suggested buying a non MOTed 2.6 coupe I had seen for sale in Essex to swap bits onto the convertible to make it work again. The garage said it was a good idea, but could do better than as he knew of one locally. I bought the local coupe and the garage used it as a guide to put the convertible back together again as all its parts were there. It turns out the convertible fuel pump was not working so we replaced it with a new one and that car was then back on the road.

Now I had a non MOTed 2.6 Coupe at a local garage, I suggested I had it taken away for scrap. The garage said do you want me to MOT it for you, I have had a look at it and it only needs some suspension bushes for an MOT! So then I had a working convertible and Coupe!

I ended up selling the Coupe and keeping the convertible. I used the convertible for the 2015 Shitefest two locations Wales. Some years later unfortunately the heater matrix sprung a leak and it is a dash out job. I was bemoaning this massive job to a friend who said what if I buy it broken! Trouble is he still has the car but not fixed it.

[inconsistant]

Wow what a lively blue, you wouldn’t lose that in a car park. Must be the last N reg car on the road, haven’t seen one for ages. 

[Blake's Den]

2 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

How I came to own an Audi 2.6 Coupe.

I had bought a 2.6 Manual Convertible of the same era non running. The previous owner’s son in law, a Mechanic with a Honda dealer had taken the fuse box apart and a few other things. A local garage agreed to take it on for me but were baffled by the mess and I suggested buying a non MOTed 2.6 coupe I had seen for sale in Essex to swap bits onto the convertible to make it work again. The garage said it was a good idea, but could do better than as he knew of one locally. I bought the local coupe and the garage used it as a guide to put the convertible back together again as all its parts were there. It turns out the convertible fuel pump was not working so we replaced it with a new one and that car was then back on the road.

Now I had a non MOTed 2.6 Coupe at a local garage, I suggested I had it taken away for scrap. The garage said do you want me to MOT it for you, I have had a look at it and it only needs some suspension bushes for an MOT! So then I had a working convertible and Coupe!

I ended up selling the Coupe and keeping the convertible. I used the convertible for the 2015 Shitefest two locations Wales. Some years later unfortunately the heater matrix sprung a leak and it is a dash out job. I was bemoaning this massive job to a friend who said what if I buy it broken! Trouble is he still has the car but not fixed it.

Good stuff! Let's hope that I don't need to replace the heater matrix then 🙂

[Blake's Den]

56 minutes ago, inconsistant said:

Wow what a lively blue, you wouldn’t lose that in a car park. Must be the last N reg car on the road, haven’t seen one for ages. 

Having looked at Howmanyleft.co.uk there seems to be a few of them around.  However I can't remember the last time that I saw one.

[Remspoor]

I have just watched the video. Getting it started looked easier than the previous series I watch on getting an Audi 80 running. That is the same series linked to by Stuboy

There were similar issues though.

 

[Blake's Den]

I'm amazed at how popular this video has been. There does seem to be a lot of love for these Audis. I'm hoping to get some more content on it filmed this week but in the meantime here is a better picture of the tree/bush growing out of the rear bumper 🤣

[Volksy]

I'm pretty sure that fuse box and electrical gremlins killed @HillmanImps one of these. I know he had it at various specialists* who then killed it more.  

[HillmanImp]

1 hour ago, Volksy said:

I'm pretty sure that fuse box and electrical gremlins killed @HillmanImps one of these. I know he had it at various specialists* who then killed it more.  

Yeah, if I remember rightly, I think the crankshaft sensor had gone whwn it broke down but the garage it got dragged to took off the fuse box cover and water got in and spelt the end. 

Think a friend of @Lankytimstill has it stashed away somewhere though. 

Loved that car, definitely in my top 5. So nice to drive AND to look at. 

It did seem to use more fuel than any car I've had before or since though but it figured out that I was working out the fuel economy and broke its mileometer.

Back in the days when you could get a nice 17yr old car for £500.

 

[Volksy]

MOT expired November 2013 - Jeez has it been nearly ten years!

I still had the 205 CTi I think at the time!

[bunglebus]

I really like this shape Audi, they still don't look dated to me at all.

Hopefully this one will be back on the road again soon

[HillmanImp]

7 hours ago, Volksy said:

MOT expired November 2013 - Jeez has it been nearly ten years!

I still had the 205 CTi I think at the time!

Blimey, time doesn't half fly. Thankfully I've barely aged a day. 😂

[MJK 24]

Had an early A4 with they 2.6 V6.  Bloody hell that thing went through some petrol!  32mpg absolute max if sitting behind lorry.

Lovely and smooth however with plenty of torque.

[Blake's Den]

10 hours ago, MJK 24 said:

Had an early A4 with they 2.6 V6.  Bloody hell that thing went through some petrol!  32mpg absolute max if sitting behind lorry.

Lovely and smooth however with plenty of torque.

That was one of the reasons why it was parked up, it was costing a lot of money to run. Ironically, the average petrol price is 2008 was 103.9p per litre. Bargain!

[Blake's Den]

An update on das Audi.

I decided to run it up to temperature to see if the bad tappety noise would go away. I concluded:

1. If there was something siezed or broken in the valve train then the damage would already have happened.

2. The heat cycle might help to free up anything that wasn't playing ball.

The good news was the more that I ran it, the quieter it got. After 20 mins the cooling fan cut in and the engine was running sweet. Result!

Next step was to free off the clutch. A firm stamp on the peddle and it went to the floor. Result again! A bit of air in the tyres and it was ready for it's first drive in 15 years 🙂

Next step is to sort out the fuel pump relay and give it a good wash.

 

[Remspoor]

18 hours ago, Blake's Den said:

and give it a good wash.

I saw some bod making a demand for you to wash it.

I thought your reply was calm.

 

Why do they have to say that. Is it not obvious it will be done. It will be done in your own time. It is your project your channel. Rant over.

[Blake's Den]

15 minutes ago, Remspoor said:

I saw some bod making a demand for you to wash it.

I thought your reply was calm.

 

Why do they have to say that. Is it not obvious it will be done. It will be done in your own time. It is your project your channel. Rant over.

It doesn't bother me at all. I rarely get really bad comments, if I do I just delete them and block the user. 

It does need a wash but I'd rather get it running and driving first otherwise it is just a really big shiny paper weight.

[Low ontime]

Decent video, from the era Audi made really great quality cars.

[GregZX]

There’s one of these in the garage round the corner from me. J reg I think. It’s been sitting there for about 15 years too. 

[Blake's Den]

6 hours ago, Low ontime said:

Decent video, from the era Audi made really great quality cars.

Thanks 😀

Yes it does seem to be well screwed together. Not a lot of rust either

[Blake's Den]

1 hour ago, GregZX said:

There’s one of these in the garage round the corner from me. J reg I think. It’s been sitting there for about 15 years too. 

Provided that the fuel pump hadn't siezed then it should fire up straight away!

[GregZX]

5 minutes ago, Blake's Den said:

Provided that the fuel pump hadn't siezed then it should fire up straight away!

Don’t tempt me. He had a Volvo Amazon as well that I enquired about on the same day it was lifted to the scrapyard. Thank god. 

[Blake's Den]

Well, things have got interesting.

Despite running fine in the last video, when I went back to it two weeks later it refused to run and was making a bad clinking sound from somewhere. After a bit of head scratching I conclude that if the engine was dead then cranking it some more won't make the problem any worse.  I got it to run on three cylinders breifly but it wasn't happy at all. I put a bit of brake cleaner in the intake to help it start as the petrol in it is very old, this may have been a mistake!

If you watch the video you will see what happens. But in short, there was an enormus backfire which blew a hole in the air box and created three seperate fires! Luckily I had a dry powder extinguisher on hand which put out two of the three fires, the other was put out with the garden hose.

So what happened?

My hypothesis is that there are issues with the valve gear on one bank of cylinders. This could be a stuck open intake valve or valves. When I cranked the engine by hand it didn't feel like it had a lot of compression. When I was cranking the engine this drew the brake cleaner in along with the petrol being released from the injectors. At some point this ignited from the spark plug and, because the valve wasn't shutting fully, resulted in a back fire through the intake system.

Despite all of this I don't think that it is dead. The engine still spins over and there is no major damage other than the air box. I need to get the rocker covers off and maybe the heads too to find out what is going on.

[Vimesy]

I'm guilty of not having a fire extinguisher to hand ........ think that I'll invest in one after seeing that!