In reply to Turbine :
Remember how that 040 was going to fit in the stock basket? Ha.
After pumping almost 10 gallons of old gas out of the tank, I was greeted with this. Someone replaced the 60mm pump and basket with a 43mm version from a urS car. So now I need an adapter.
I also found some torn dust boots on my other 17z caliper, so the brake job is on hold AGAIN while a new seal kit is on the way. Guess I should've inspected it sooner. Ah well.
In better news, the 3B to AAN adapter harness and fuel pump relay harness are here, so I'll have something to work on while waiting for parts at least. I hate having this many projects going at once, but I want to keep things moving
The good thing is you don't have a brittle yellowed old pump basket! That's nice to see!
In reply to de80q :
That's true! Thanks for the perspective lol
And we're back. Got the fuel pump adapter kit and installed it.
And then took a break to help a friend replace strut mounts, rotors, and pads on his Alltrack. 
Pretty cool having two manual, AWD, turbocharged VAG products in my garage at once. Especially because of the extreme differences between the two.
That was a few days ago. This morning, I couldn't sleep, so I snuck out to the garage to get some work done before my daughter woke up.
Fuel pump basket's back in place
And everything's back together in the trunk. I didn't take any pictures of it, but I also installed the fuel pump relay harness.
Still waiting on the caliper rebuild kit.
Are you rebuilding the front or rear calipers? Sorry if you already mentioned it. If it's the rear you will want a pair of These. Also, make sure to pack the e'brale rod with high temp, waterproof grease.
In reply to de80q :
No worries! It's the right front caliper. 2 of the 6 dust boots have small tears in them. No signs of leakage yet, but better safe than sorry.
The rears were a little stiff when I tried to retract the pistons, but I was able to free them up. I should still look into a rebuild though. Was that link to a rebuild kit for them? I can't get it to work.
For the rear kit, check out rockauto. The centric kit for the rears is cheap, and fits perfectly.
Here is the link to the snap ring pliers(again) you will need to do the job.
If that doesn't work this time, look up "master cylinder snap ring pliers" on Amazon. They are a long 90° pliers to get the snap ring from the bottom of the bore.
Awesome. Thanks!
I had another short stint in the garage this morning, so I tried to make progress on the ECU conversion.
Step 1: Finding the grommet, which required cutting the passenger's side carpet and rolling it back.
Step 2: Fish a coat hanger through the grommet to see where it exits in the engine bay.
Under the steering rack. Cool.
And finally, Step 3: Tape the harness to the hanger and pull it through the grommet. This went a lot easier than I anticipated.
Afterward, I started pulling the ECU connector apart. I couldn't quite pull the black piece back far enough to get good access to the pins, but I ran out of time before I could try too hard. Hopefully I don't have to de-pin the entire connector. Regardless, it'll be tight fitting 5 new wires through the black piece. It's already tight as is.
I played around with the ECU connector a little more yesterday. Access to the connector requires a bit of contortionism, but I've worked in far worse conditions at my day job lol
I got the power wires for the coils fed through the connector body, but unfortunately that's about where my progress stopped.
I haven't had any luck removing the pins from the ECU connector, and I'm starting to get worried about breaking the plastic. For reference, I'm using these
And they've worked without issue on some of the other connectors on the vehicle, but it seems like space is much more limited here. Any suggestions or recommendations for a good tool or set of tools?
Life has been wild, and I've been neglecting this thread. But progress has been happening. Nothing too crazy, but it's something.
First, I figured out that I was doing it wrong trying to depin the ECU connector. I was able to make the correct tool out of a binder clip. Once I was able to get the pins to release, the rest of the job should have been easy, right? Nope. I ended up having to cut away part of the connector (the part I circled). It looks like a redundant locking device, so hopefully I didn't compromise the connector. The pins still feel secure in their housings, and the back piece of the housing still snaps into place, which should, in theory keep things together. Worst case, I'll put some clear RTV in the back of the holes or something. Also, if you're doing electrical work and don't have a set of hemostats, do yourself a favor and grab them. Best tool ever.
Second, I started rebuilding the shifter. There are a few bushings on the 016 that wear out and make it impossible to find a gear. The first is a ball/socket style bushing on the linkage that's NLA everywhere. 034 makes a poly version, but by all accounts it's awful and disintegrates within a few months. So I found an STL file for a 3D printed Nylon bushing and found a few people on the OT board that might be able to make something. Hopefully something comes of that, but if not, I'll try to figure something out. The second is the shifter assembly itself. The rod is plastic and prone to cracking, and the plastic ball and socket at the bottom of the arm is known to wear out occasionally. I bought an 034 shifter assembly on black friday started putting it together. Most of the original pieces seemed fine, but at least the billet rod looks cool, even though nobody will see it.
Third, my 17z seal/boot kit came in from the UK. Haven't had a chance to work on the caliper yet, but at least the end of this brake job is finally in sight. It's only been 3 months lol
Oh! and a bonus update. The plastics on the car were complete and uncracked, which is pretty rare, but they were pretty faded, so I hit them with some Wurth Plast PT on the recommendation of a few VW guys. So far, so good! Of course, they haven't seen any sunlight or weather yet, so who knows how it'll hold up.
Before:
After:
If you look on theprojectpad.com you will find a guy who has those nylon bushings printed out and ready to go. He's a good guy to deal with
The mirrors looks great! Hopefully they hold up.
In reply to de80q :
Thanks! I'm hoping so too. Worst case, I've got plenty of the dye left lol
I saw his listings on The Project Pad and MG. Tried reaching out to him on both and didn't hear back. It is what it is
Thus ends the saga of the 3 month long brake job. Not super optimistic about how some of the dust boots fit, but I was able to get it to what I considered an acceptable point.
So I moved onto the rear struts. Nothing too crazy there. Got into a bit of a disagreement with one of the strut nuts, but it was nothing a cutoff wheel couldn't solve.
I also went to two Pull a Parts over the weekend to help a friend look for stuff for his Element. Didn't find anything for the Audi (which I expected), but I did see this
And came across a mk3 GTI VR6 with a seemingly complete engine. If I had more time, I would've tried pulling it just for the hell of it. Oh well.
Haven't had too much update worthy material lately due to picking up OT at work to build up the engine fund. And when I finally made time to work on the car a bit, my truck had other plans 
Kachow :(
Just a lower ball joint, but it meant that I didn't get a chance to investigate the clutch hydraulics like I planned.
The clutch pedal only moves about 1/2" and then stops dead. It feels like something is jammed, maybe? Opening the bleeder shows that fluid is in the system, and the master cylinder rod doesn't seem to be broken, at least as far as I can tell. There's not much visibility. The slave cylinder also seems intact. I'm kind of at a loss. Might just try replacing both cylinders, unless anyone has any other ideas? I've never really dealt with hydraulic clutches before, so I'm not too confident in my ability to diagnose this
The hydraulic clutch pedal should not be touched as long as the clutch is out of the car. With no clutch pushing back on the slave, the slave piston will hyper extend until it falls out or hits a stop & be stuck.
Is there an engine for the car yet? We need some 20VT porn.
FJ40Jim said:The hydraulic clutch pedal should not be touched as long as the clutch is out of the car. With no clutch pushing back on the slave, the slave piston will hyper extend until it falls out or hits a stop & be stuck.
Is there an engine for the car yet? We need some 20VT porn.
Somehow I didn't even think about the engine being out... Pushing the clutch peddle at that point is a huge no no!
After the engine is back in, if it's still a problem, check the "over center spring" on the clutch peddle itself. I know it's been known to be a problem on the B3's with uprated clutches.
Good to know. I guess I got lucky that something's keeping me from depressing it fully. Hopefully I haven't berkeleyed anything up playing around with it lol
As far as the engine goes, I'm hoping to have one by late spring/early summer. It makes for a boring build thread, but we had a bunch of unexpected expenses this past year, and it totally wiped out any car money I had set aside.
This is one of the more interesting and unusual projects I've seen on here in a while! I always thought these were handsome cars. Keep up the good work!
In reply to Loweguy5 :
Thanks, I appreciate it! I feel like this has been a pretty slow moving and boring thread so far, but I'm glad people are enjoying it
Update: Still no engine, but I've been keeping busy doing much less important things.
I really didn't love the wheels that came with the car, especially since they needed hub centric rings to fit, so I picked up a set of B6 A4 5 spokes. The tires hold air better than the gold wheels, and they were crazy cheap. But woof, they're rough.
Originally, I was just going to use these as rollers, but the look is kinda growing on me, and less money spent on new wheels means more money towards the engine. I'd never refinished wheels before, and I figured this was as good a time as any to learn. It's not like they could get any worse, right?
First, the prep. This is after 3 rounds of sanding (red scotchbrite, 200, then 400 grit) and a wash with soap and water, followed by a once-over with acetone. Next, filler.
I've only worked with bondo a handful of times, and it's probably been 10 years since the last time, so it went about as well as you'd expect.
I made a mess spreading the initial layers on. My spreaders would have been fine for body work, but were way too big for some of the smaller areas in the wheels. My autozone card made the ultimate sacrifice, but made the job much easier. The gray areas are metal reinforced Bondo, and the red are Bondo spot putty.
All 4 wheels have been filled, and I've started the initial sanding with 80 grit. No pictures yet, but it's going well.
The plan is to respray them more of an anthracite color once I'm done with the sanding. It should look nice against the pearl white paint and keep me from ordering new wheels for a while.
As much as I loathe gold, it looks amazing against that pearl white.
Those wheels look damn good.
In reply to ian sane :
I've reeeeally been going back and forth on the color for the 5 spokes. Bronze or Gold would have been my first choice, but I was thinking a darker color might hide the imperfections a little better? idk.
Or were you talking about the original gold wheels that it came on? They've definitely grown on me, I just don't love the faux 3-piece look, or that they need hub centric rings. I'm still keeping them around, and they might find their way back on the car if the 5 spokes turn out poorly lol
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