How to Save a Life, or at least try lol- Reviving a B5 Audi A4

[19birel]

Hey guys, I've been on here a while, mainly as a lurker but I figured I'd post up my first build to document progress and get some opinions/advice to help me along! Below is just copy and pasted from my thread on Fourtitude to give you guys some intro to the project.

Hey everyone, my name is Ayrton and I'm a sr. in high school who just purchased his first car! It's a 1999.5 A4 1.8T Quattro 5MT. It's a two owner car, the second owner having purchased it at the end of his friend's lease. According the the p.o. it has new brakes, a new turbo, and new clutch along with a few other things, unfortunately it the timing belt came loose and it no longer runs.

According to the gentleman I bought it from, he drove somewhere, the CEL came on (prompting him to call his shop to ask when he had scheduled the appointment for the timing belt) and when he tried started the car to go home, there was a "whining" noise and it wouldn't start so he had the car towed to his mechanic's shop & they said the belt came loose.

Having only purchased it for $900 I'm confident that even if I have to replace the engine (a worse case scenario from what I've read) I can still get her back on the road for around 2k including price of the car if I do all my own work which is the plan. Once the weather warms up a little bit and my dad is willing to sacrifice his spot in the garage, I'll bring in the A4 and get to work. Here are some pics from when I pulled the battery yesterday, i forgot the DSLR at home so excuse the iPotatoe quality.

[IMG]IMG_2007 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr[/IMG]

IMG_2008 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

IMG_2011 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

IMG_2009 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

IMG_2012 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

IMG_2018 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

IMG_2019 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Driver's seat is ruined
IMG_2013 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

This looks like I can repair it
IMG_2014 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

So here are my plans for it

1) Clean the crap out of it- the interior is grotesque and doesn't looks like it's ever been cleaned & the engine bay, where I'll be spending a ton of time could also use some work

2) Find out if the valves are bent- there is a small chance the valve train survived and that just the belt and tensioner needs replaced, if so I need to figure out if I can check this without pulling the head. If thats not possible, off comes the head...

3) Get it running, this process will vary on the results of the last one obviously

4) repair the interior

5) Body work- the bumpers are trashed so I'll have smooth them out and try and repaint them

6) Unless by some miracle I can afford wheels after all this, I'm going to refinish the stock wheels (the paint on them is bubbling) and throw fresh tires on as the current ones are bald

7) Whatever little mods my broke self can afford to do

I'm sure there'll be a few other misc things that I do to it, but that should give you guys an idea of where I'm headed. I'm mechanically inclined but this is my first "build" so I have much to learn! All advice is appreciated!!!

So, a little time has passed since I made that post on Fortitude and I can proudly say the car is nice and cozy in my garage ready to be torn to bits haha.
Untitled by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr
Pardon the Snapchat lol

Let me know what you think! Another update is one the way later today after I make some progress on it, Stay tuned

[cosmo135]

Looks good man! Subbed!

[mgpdoc]

Let me know if you need 1.8T parts. I have like, eveyrything, LoL.

Nice project, Love the B5

Cheers

Mike

[19birel]

Looks good man! Subbed!

Thanks man! I was just looking at your Charger project, I like where its headed!

Let me know if you need 1.8T parts. I have like, eveyrything, LoL.

Nice project, Love the B5

Cheers

Mike

Thanks Mike, I loved reading through your B7 build, very well done! I may have to message you about some of those 1.8T parts in the future haha.

[kittenpuncher]

Good luck love b5s

[19birel]

Good luck love b5s

Thanks man!

Ok so here's yesterday's update. Cleaning took much longer than expected, there was so much more than I expected, and it took quite a bit of scrubbing the carpets to get the smell out Oh well, anyways here are some pics

The things you find in the trunk of a used car... Though those bottles of oil and antifreeze may come in handy lol
IMG_1200 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Even after hitting it with the shop vac it looked pretty bad
IMG_1206 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Stains started going away after spraying them with purple power and scrubbing the snot out of em
IMG_1207 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr
Forgot to take a pic of the finished product but oh well

The driver seat area was bad so I just removed the seat...that's about $5 in change there and a whole lot of nastiness
IMG_1209 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

After tons of scrubbing with carpet cleaner and vacuuming
IMG_1211 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

I also sprayed it a few times with this stuff, it really helped with getting the odor out
IMG_1212 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

some of the grey trim that turned brown
IMG_1215 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

now its back to grey haha
IMG_1214 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

I won't bore you with the rest of the details but here's the semi final product, I'm still undecided as to whether or not I'm going to shampoo the carpets as last I check the smell, although greatly reduced, still lingered.
IMG_1218 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Today I'm going to try and get a start on pulling the head though I have to go somewhere later and am not sure how much time I'll have to work.

Thanks for looking!

[19birel]

Well here's an update for you guys on where I've gotten the past few days. I was sick on monday so I made very little progress then, but I got a lot done yesterday so here goes!

IMG_1220 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr
First thing I did was remove the bolts to the intake manifold as well as loosen up the fuel rail. One thing that really struck me about this process was the lack of torque required to loosen all of the bolts. They were simply snug, not extraordinarily tight.

IMG_1221 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Then I removed the plugs for the injectors which was as simple as pushing the small clip attached to them and pulling them off. The whole wiring harness for them came up with it aswell which was nice.
IMG_1228 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

A quick pic of my method of organization to keep track of where everything goes, I have a labeled plastic bin for all the nuts.
IMG_1227 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

I have also found taking notes helpful
IMG_1239 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Anyways, the next step was disconnecting this coolant hose
IMG_1251 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Now I thought I could contain the coolant without making too big a mess but.... shoulda drained the radiator:roll eyes:
IMG_1250 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Then I removed the two bolts towards the back of the engine that were holding it in place
IMG_1253 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Now I forgot to take a pic but that allowed me to move the intake manifold off of the cylinder head and move it far enough away that I should be able to pull the head without removing the intake, fuel rail etc.

Next was the valve cover, undo a few nuts & bolts and then get at the coil packs.
IMG_1234 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Of course the only non OEM coil pack gave me trouble, it actually split in two the first time I tried removing it, so I reinstalled it and wiggled it around for a while until it finally came out as one unit, I hope it still works properly:P
IMG_1235 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Removed and numbered them, not sure how true it is that I'll have misfire issues if I put them back in a different order, but don't feel like finding out haha
IMG_1236 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Got the valve cover removed
IMG_1244 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

IMG_1243 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

Cleaned it up a little, debating on putting in a little more work and painting it
IMG_1249 by Ayrton @ Drive19, on Flickr

That's were I'm at now, I just remembered I forgot to remove the exhaust manifold so that will come off tomorrow (I have to do some work on the daily tonight). Also my specialty tools to remove the head should be in tomorrow so I'll hopefully be able to take care of that then as well. Stay Tuned!