Today was warmer so I finally got around to cleaning the Avant off. Lots of brake dust on the front SSR Comps from all of the test driving.
I’m leaning towards swapping the Stoptech brakes over, which will change the front caliper color to red.
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Rear CV Boot Replacement
The driver’s side rear CV boot was torn on the Avant so I purchased a replacement boot. I was thinking that removing the old boot was going to be a challenge, but I ended up spending more time trying to extract the axle from the car.
As shown in the picture, the rear portion of the exhaust needed to be cleared away. I also found that the swaybar end link was in the way so I detached the lower end so it could swing out of the way. I also found that raising the wheel at certain times during the extraction helped with clearing parts.
Eventually it was out.
To my surprise the end came off easily once the circlip holding it in place was removed. Parts were swapped and then installing the axle back in the car was a breeze compared to the removal.
I’ve also swapped the wheels over to my SSR Comps. It is remarkable how much lighter these wheels are than any of the other wheels I have.
I also replaced the EPL MAF with RS4 MAF and airbox top, which also necessitated swapping the tune to one that uses these parts.
I decided to run a boost test since I had been seeing the long term fuel trims get a bit high. Sure enough one of the IC hose clamps was not fully secured.
During the check out of the new CV boot with the Avant I decided to do a couple of brake pulls to see how the stock brakes with Akebono pads would compare to the Stoptech’s that were on my Sedan. All measurements were made with the same wheel and tire combination.
I only managed to do two deceleration’s, but the results are pretty interesting.
The lower green line is the first braking. I then continued driving for 30-40 seconds before performing the second braking, which is the upper green line.
Start up
Today’s car picture looks very similar to yesterday, the car has not moved yet.
Getting the clutch bled was my first priority and I decided to go at it in a different way. I have the hose line and adapter from a Motive Power Bleeder which I attached to my air compressor. I put a fluid collection bottle onto the slave cylinder nipple, coming at it from the driver side wheel well. This was also a tricky arrangement, but had more space to operate in than I was having coming at the slave cylinder from the engine compartment by the coolant reservoir.
With about 15 psi of air into the blake fluid reservoir I was able to get the last of the air out of the slave cylinder line and now the clutch pedal is operating correctly.
I was then ready to start it up. It began o.k., but I noticed an odd whining noise from the engine compartment that sounded like a belt rubbing on something. I shut it down for a visual inspection but could not find anything apparently wrong with the accessory belt. I started it back up and moved to the engine compartment to try and isolate the location of the sound. It seemed to be coming from passenger side timing belt cover. I was not looking forward to pulling the front of the car off. With a closer inspection I found that the timing belt cover was in fact being rubbed, causing the noise. I was able to loosen the cover and pull it out slightly and that eliminated the rubbing. At the same time I found that I was getting a number of misfires on cylinder one.
The first effort was to adjust the timing belt cover so that it would be fixed in place and not rubbing. That took a little while but was fixed, at which point I moved on to trying to diagnose the misfire. I began by inspecting the spark plug, or rather as I started to do that I noticed a good bit of liquid condensation on the bottom side of the coil pack. Hmm, smells like gas, a possible leak around the spark plug? It turned out that the spark plug was not fully seated. Thinking back to several months prior when I had removed this motor from the Nogaro I recall that I had checked the condition of the spark plugs, but had not fully inserted them back in! Doh!
So around I went torquing all of the spark plugs to 25 NM and it started up and idled well. I’ve not rechecked with VCDS, I’d had enough for one day, but happily things are progressing towards getting this car back on the road.