Boost, tint and tires for the Audi

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While I’m trying not to turn the Audi into a project car, a few things did need to be addressed before it settles in as a daily driver. The first was the tires, it came with Blizzak snow tires on what I think are the original rims, as wells as a set of bare 18″ rims from a sport package A4. I went with set of Continental DWS06+ on the sport rims for summer. They’re on the performance side of all-seasons, but should hold up if/when I’m slow putting the snows back on this winter.

Next up was the yellowed headlights. I went with one of the usual sand and polish kits, though this time I also tried a UV film along with the (probably useless) clear coat wipes they provide. Some of the crazing was too deep to sand out, but from a distance it’s now looking presentable. I also had tint installed since the black paint with black interior and panoramic wagon windows is a terrible combination for high altitude sun. I went as dark as I could on the shade, which in Colorado is roughly 25%. Definitely helps the heat and no complaints on the style.

The final upgrade was completely unnecessary, but irresistible. On impulse I bought a classic VDO boost gauge out of nostalgia for the Audi 200. Unfortunately that meant I couldn’t use any of the off-the-shelf gauge mounts for the A4, which are generally only compatible with modern short-depth electronic gauges. So 3d-printing to the rescue. I mocked up a gauge mount that clamps to the defroster vent and tried driving around with the weight of the gauge in place. It held, so I reprinted in ABS, and wired it in.

The A4 is in no way faster with the gauge in place, but I’m still not over the fun of seeing the needle swing past 15psi. The model could still use some tweaks for aesthetics, but the first pass is now up on printables.

The Kansas Rx7

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I’ve been digging in to the Kansas Rx-7 to see if it’s worth saving. So far I’m leaning towards…yes. The worst of the damage from the hit to the front left is on part of the rail which supports the outer fender, and it looks like it can be straightened out. Fortunately the inner fender, frame rail, and bumper support are untouched. The front fender mount, fender stay bar, and lower support bracket are mangled, but replacements for the last two are available. The bracket itself will have to be removed, but I should be able to get it back in shape once it’s off the car.

That still leaves the the floorplan rust to deal with, so pulling the carpet is up next. But that’s the goal for next week. In the mean time I pulled the (wrecked) driver’s seat and gave the interior a moderately thorough cleaning. The dash is in rough shape and some of the other interior plastics are brittle and faded from sun damage, but otherwise it’s complete and in decent condition. If I do end up restoring it, a dash swap from my other Rx-7 is in my future.

My other project was replacing the rear carpet clips that release the cover for the spare wheel well. They’re a common failure item as the plastic ages and fortunately there’s a 3d-printable replacement on Thingiverse. This Rx-7 actually had both clips intact…until the first time I opened it. The replacements aren’t pretty up close, but are functional and look good enough from a distance. The picture is of a couple spares I printed for my other Rx7. Neither might be running, but at least the carpet will be firmly attached.

New parts car…or project?

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Driving the Audi reminded me that I miss having a project car in the garage. The 2.0T has a surprisingly tempting aftermarket, so before I went too far with what’s supposed to be my daily I decided I needed to haul my Rx-7 out of storage and start work on it again. It didn’t take long to realize that FC Rx-7 parts have skyrocketed in price since the last time I looked, so the only practical solution was to pick up a parts car.

This one showed up on facebook marketplace, it’s a 1989 GXL with only 65k miles. It looks like it sat outside in the Kansas sun for the past 15 years and every seal (as well as the paint) has deteriorated. Water pooled in the floorboards and there are good sized holes on both sides, as well as in the spare wheel well in back. It also took a hit on the driver’s side fender at some point, though fortunately the damage seems to be limited to the fender itself, the bumper mount, and the headlight support. The dash and seats are sun damaged, with the driver’s side showing the worst of it.

Otherwise it’s in ok shape and is shockingly complete. It has the cargo tray, clean speaker covers, mostly dry sunroof, plastic undertray, FTP lenses, etc.. which are nearly impossible to find outside of outrageous ebay pricing. I’m still undecided if I’m going to strip it and junk it, or fix it up and throw the turbo driveline in it. So far the rust seems to be more isolated than on my other Rx7, but it’ll be hard to tell until I pull the carpet out.

Rx-7 #3

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Since I just bought Rx7 #4, thought I’d dig through old photos to find #3. This car was a pure parts car I picked up winter of ’08. It was missing quite a few parts and the floorboards were rotted through, so not worth saving. The only good thing about it was it was an identical model to my first Rx7, an S5 GTU. I stripped the remaining interior parts, carpet, seats, and door cards and junked the rest.

New car

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Four years and 65k miles later the LR3 is still going. It’s taken me across the country several times, often with a trailer in tow. It’s comfortable, capable, and surprisingly reliable. But it’s a terrible city car. So I’ve added an Audi:

Land Rover LR3

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I sold the T100! And bought something to replace it. The 4Runner was supposed to be it, but the seating position is unbearable. I initially thought it was due to thrashed stock seats, but even after replacing them with low mile ones I could only stand 30 minutes at best. I’m going to keep it around for a while as a backup, but the new daily is now a Land Rover LR3.

It came with the ARB bumper, HSE luxury package, and the sought after HD package (rear locker!) I have a trip coming up quickly, so I replaced the junk tires with Toyo Open Country AT3s and ripped off the running boards. The next step was a trial run at the T33 Plane Crash trail, where I immediately discovered that the LR3 does in fact have a longer wheelbase than a Jeep TJ.

The ledge is steeper on the far side of the picture and I was stuck hung up on the frame of the LR3. Looking back I could have taken another line and avoided the obstacle entirely, but eventually stacking rocks got us out of it. Along with upgrading driver skill, I’ll be looking at getting rock sliders for when this inevitably happens again.

Side by Side

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I recently took the T100 and 4Runner out for a road trip through southern Colorado. The trip was a combination of highway driving and unimproved roads and with myself in the T100 and my SO in the 4Runner, and it was a good chance to see them side by side. On the highway the 4Runner showed better gas mileage than I expected, 11.3 vs 12.6 gallons for the T100 over just about 240 miles. With the same engine between them, the difference has to be down to weight and the manual transmission. While that impressed, washboard roads early on did uncover a problem with the 4runner:

With over 208k miles on it, the original shocks were still in service. The passenger rear shock ended up failing at the top bolt due to metal fatigue. It was an easy fix once the game of “what’s that noise???” played out.

After that excitement we took the million dollar highway down to Durango, then back up to Silverton where we picked up the road to Animas Forks on our way to Engineer pass. While the road wasn’t particularly challenging, the views were incredible.

We continued on to Wheeler geologic area, a site with eeie volcanic ash hoodoos in the middle of nowhere Colorado. The road to it was 16 miles of loose rocks and confirmed that the T100 ride is miserable. What the 4runner could do at 15mph was a pain at 10 in the truck.

On the way out of Wheeler we hit a surprise section of forest road marked “damaged”, which made for the roughest roads on the trip. In hindsight, I can’t believe the road was ever not damaged to begin with.

All in all everything worked as expected and I’ll moving forward with selling the truck. It’ll be hard to let it go, the bench seat and extra width make it more comfortable on the highway than the 4Runner, but just about everywhere else the 4Runner comes out ahead.

Why you replace Ball Joints

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1996 to 2002 Toyota 4Runners are reliable, reasonably sized, and were the last generation available with a manual transmission. Add in the Toyota tax and they are nearly always priced higher than a 20 year old truck should be. So while I wasn’t really looking for a 4Runner, I couldn’t pass up a deal on an otherwise clean one with a failed ball-joint.

It was first listed for $1000, but even with the collapsed suspension I ended up bidding against other buyers and had to go up to $1700. Considering that’s what I paid for the T100 4 years ago, I’m considering it a lucky number.

Though compared to the headgasket on the T100, it much easier to get back on the road. At a minimum it need new upper and lower balljoints on the passenger side, along with a CV. Considering the rest of the balljoints were just as likely to fall apart, I went through the driver’s side as well and threw in new tie-rods while I was at it. Once it was back together I swapped over the tires from the T100 and it’s now taken over as my commuter.

4Runner back on the road with BFG KO2s in 235/85r16

Topper and Tires

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After just about two years, I’ve sold the topper:

Compared to the pop-up campers, it was a much better compromise for a daily driver. I ended up not camping out of it that often, but when I needed to it did well enough.

For the rest of the time, it did it’s job of generally keeping things dry and out of sight. I ended up selling it for the same reason I swapped out the tires and rims, it’s time for a new project.