And do the cruise control, dang! Or else I'll punish you...

 

So I'm actually getting somewhere now . I have pretty much taken appart most of my car's engine department...lol. Well, at least now I know where everything is if I ever need to replace cords, sensors, etc. Unfortunatley, I accidentally moved the breather hose (purple outline in the pic) more than it could stand by accident and it just snapped[:@]! So, after making a few calls and net checks, it looks like I'll be spending about $100 to get a new one.

Thanks again for the tip. Interestingly enough, I do not see a good DIY write up on the valve cover gasket nor do I see one at all for the head cover gaskets on the net. Hopefully when I am done writing mine up it will be a new inspiration....lol....but I'm not trying to get ahead of myself.

Say, did any of you guys do the timing belt on your A4's and how did you remove the power steering pump pulley (the tope middle silver pulley - circled blue in the pic). I just removed the 3x6mm allen bolts but it still wont come off. Should I try prying hardcore on it? Do I have to loosen the middle allen piece or will th 3x6mm allen bolts do the job? Thanks guys

[IMG]local://upfiles/33420/68E556BFF7CD4F078EB17BA336045258.jpg[/IMG]

 

You can get the breather hose for like $75 from ECS or you can try this: http://audi.kris-hansen.com/breather_fix.htm

 

Thanks for the tip.

 

Hell, I just wrapped the crap out of it with electrical tape awhile ago (and again Wednesday when I painted the VCs and broke it again) and it's held up fine. I'll replace it at some point, but for now this works just fine. Since you can take it off so easily at any time, why not just tape it together for the meantime and hold onto the extra cash in case you find you need something more vital during your rebuild. You can always replace it later on.

FWIW, if you look at it, it's a square-section tube almost all the way down, but right near the connectors, it's round. I may try cutting (breaking) it off at the round-to-square transition, and fitting round hose over it as a permanent fix. If it works and seals up, I'm fine with that, rather than dropping that much money on something that's just crappy and going to break again in the future.

 

The electric tape idea sounds good for now. I'll have to try that. I cannot believe just how expensive a piece of plastic could cost....oh well. That's the price you pay for the Audi.

Update on "Head Gasket" project: So, now I have the valve covers off, fuel rails with intake valves off, the intake manifold off (I found the intake gaskets which are on the bottom of the manifold) and a whole bunch of wires and vacuum hoses unplugged
My next plan is to get the dual overhead cams off to replace two different gaskets (which will require to get the camshaft sprokes off in which I will replace the gasket seals for those as well), then those will be placed back in. Next, I will take the head off to replace the head gasket. I realized that you need a special polydrive (blue spots in pic are where you put the tool in to take off the head bolts - I have six circles but there should be eight - two more on the top - eight per head) for that, so I bought one yesterday from a "Snap-On" dealer. I also bought a transmission fluid plug remover socket as well to do the transmission fluid sometime after all this is done. After the head gaskets are installed, I will install the exhaust gaskets. That's one thing I still need to figure out how to get to. Once that is all said and done, I will put the heads back and think about whether I want to attempt to install new valve seals. There is a crap load of those...i think about 30 or so. I'm still looking into if they are a risk to touch or not. If anyone has any input on those, that would be great.


P.S. I know a lot of you may go by the moto "Don't fix what's not broke"....but after having everything removed to get to all the pieces I wanted to get, I really don't want to have to do that for a long time....so I figure I'd replace and replenish as much as I can on my car now since it is ripped apart and since I have the time


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That's a hell of a project you're doing, and it sounds like you're doing it right. I have to agree with your angle on it too - normally if it works, I'll leave it alone, but given how much work you're doing already, and the amount of teardown you've done, I'd do it all also and end up with a huge amount of brand-new parts in there. Can't fault you for investigating valve seats either - it's not like they're easily accessible if it turns out that you should've replaced them.

 

since you have all that shizzle apart how about upgrades? i like how you labeled everything, i should get into the habit of that. order an intake from ebay. do your vacum and coolant lines too. also make sure you get all your torques right when putting everything together, trust me ; )

 

I dont mean to put you down but I wouldnt get into the whole head gasket change.. Its harder than people think, unless you have ALOT of free time and another ride because it will take you at least 2 months if you work for about 3 hours a day.

 

He's already halfway there and from the descriptions he's posted, it appears he knows what he's doing. I wouldn't sweat it. If he was asking "what are these bumpy sticks all covered in oil?" then I'd be worried.