My very own update thread by BaseDrifter

6 minute(s) of a 155 minute read

Yesterday my friend and I went on a day trip to Lake Tahoe and Reno Nevada. It was basically a day of driving and taking pictures, I drove all 465 miles and averaged 22mpg.

This was the first time taking this A4 up to the snow and it performed flawlessly, even with the TONS of snow on the roads.

Had lots of fun though!

2-8-2013

Got some updates.

Pulled the steering column apart again to finalize the wiring for the cluster swap.

Here was the "test" harness I made to make sure all the hardware worked.

And here is the finished harness. The wire coming out goes to ground and is a common ground for the washer stalk and for the warning light ground outs.

The cluster side wrapped and strain relieved.

OEM as could be!

Unfortunately I'm getting an unexpected error in getting the odometer corrected, so I'm still waiting on one last hang up before I can call that project done.

The fog light retrofit has been on hold after the grilles I ordered did not arrive as advertised and did not fit. I had just the fog lights, no grilles and no pig tails (I know you can use terminal connectors, but I wanted the cleanest possible install.)

So in the meantime I saw a set pop up on ebay that included the grilles and the pig tails for ~$70. I snagged that and will piece together a 2nd set to resell and recoupe the cost.

I finally bought a used 1.8T sport suspension. The set I bought had the front replaced with a Sachs OEM replacement. When the kit arrived one of the rear springs was broken. 

The seller refunded me $25 for the broken spring and I was off to the pick n pull again.

I got both rear shocks, springs, and mounts for $40, as well as another "N" revision CLP to sell and the ECU from a 99 2.8. 

I started to install the suspension and have run into a problem mounting the rear shock. The spring appears to be pushing the shock sideways, making the whole unit angle in one direction. This is making it difficult to line up the lower bolt holes. I was able to get the bolt through the lower shock mount, line up the upper mount, and the lower body mount is a good 1" off the mark. I tried wedging it with a large screwdriver but wasn't able to get it to pop into place over the alignment pins. Any insight for getting this straightened out? (literally.)

You can see the curve here.

Success! The rear is done.

Brute force is all that was necessary, guess I was too tired last night. Those alignment pins are there for just that, aligning the shock mount haha. Oddly enough the driver side was MUCH easier and took less persuasion to get seated correctly.

Everything is cleaned, torqued, and ready to go. Now on to the front..