The Project Pad

Looks great! Good to see another WA person around. Quite a few Audi folk up in Bellingham!

Nice ride and welcome to the somewhat exclusive 200 20v avant club! I love mine and the way it surprises unsuspecting people in just about any situation.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Thanks, I'm enjoying it already and really looking forward to reaching its potential. I don't have a ton of free time but I'll be working on it all this Sunday and ordering more parts.
Anybody have good methods to treating rust? I have a couple small spots... Waiting for some touch up paint but I want to take care of it the best way possible.

The best way possible is to cut it out and weld new metal in. If you don't want to can't do that, then the second best method would be to use some POR-15 on it. They have instructions for it's use (pretty much just wire brush the loose rust off, clean the surface, and paint over it with the POR-15). That will get the job done, but it is much more rewarding to do it the right way by cutting out the old and welding in new.

By rust spots are you referring to just little spots of rust or are you talking about rotten metal?

Nick makes a good point. If the rust is very minor, you're better off just treating it with a product like POR-15 or another rust inhibitor FROM BOTH SIDES and then filling with some light bondo and repainting.

I don't know much about rust but it seems pretty topical/minor. Here's a pic of the absolute worst of it. If replacing that metal is still the best bet then eventually I'd look into that but want a more manageable treatment in the meantime to keep it from spreading. I could see how that darker bit in the middle could be a pretty big bummer. The dent on the rear drivers side I talked about on my first post might warrant a respray once that's fixed in the future anyway

I dont imagine alpine white to be too terribly hard to match when it comes to rattle cans. That looks like it's sandable, and paintable without any metal cutting.

I agree, that looks like sand/paint.

Awesome that's what I wanted to hear.

Sand and paint, just remember if you use POR-15 it does not hold up to UV rays. Top coat needed.

Welcome BTW

Awesome thread so far! Getting working done so quickly, awesome to hear.

Cannot believe the mileage on your Avant, I just creeped over 130k myself it's amazing looking around at these cars where nearly all of them are 180'-270's.

Agree also with the sanding, but make sure you use a rust converting primer first or you'll be posting a picture worse than that next year. So many things to do from here with the car I hope to see lots of updates soon!

Small update... Clear corners ordered! They are coming from Germany so they aren't supposed to get here until November 10th-14th. Also ... Thanks for the tip Nick, sent my vin into Audi USA and should hear back from them on Tuesday. Borrowing a shop tomorrow to get some work done. Seat heaters, like my rear windows and stereo, quit working. Stereo won't play a tape/tape deck, but won't play the radio unless there is a tape/tape deck inside. The radio was working up until I tried the tape deck. Oh boy electrical problems.

Seat heaters are back in working order, so is the rear passenger's side window. Replaced transmission mounts, ordering a drivers side CV axle this week, it's clicking.

What was wrong with the seat heaters? Also, keep that OEM axle, they are far superior to the aftermarket ones. Maybe rebuild it when the replacement fails.

Oddly enough, my rear pass window on my Avant does not function either. Haven't looked into it yet aside from knowing that when I move the switch up or down it does put an electrical load on the car so that leads me to believe something is locked up. Maybe the motor or the regulator.

Making nice progress!

Correction.. It's my rear driver's side window that isn't working. Nothing at all seems to happen when I move the switch up or down from the drivers controls or from the rear drivers side controls, but I haven't looked into it much either. And the The seat heaters were easy, things just got knocked around a bit putting the console back together after fixing the shifter linkage.
Thanks for the advice! I'm just ordering a used axle off a parts 200 (force5auto in New Hampshire), my driver's side axle is clicking and the outer boot is torn.
Have you heard of issues like mine with the head unit? If I turn it on it says "TAPE" and wont play the radio. If I put a tape in, it wont play the tape, it plays the radio.
Also, I'm trying to get the right touch up paint for those rust spots. Does anybody have recommendations for pen vs spray vs bottle for my problem? I will also get the POR-15 and some clear coat. Do you think I need a primer or does the POR-15 function as one, and is there a specific primer to use? I really don't want to botch it, I've done some research but I'm not feeling super confident.

The POR-15 does not require primer to apply it, but I think the same company that makes it does offer a prep/primer for it anyway. You'd want to at least scuff over the POR-15 before painting over it though. I'm no expert at this, but I'd probably POR-15, then sand and prime over that, then paint. Again, the POR-15 should come with good instructions for applying it and for topcoating it.

Thank you !

Hello, when my rear window didn't work I found water in the housing. Worth a shot.

88a5tq wrote:Hello, when my rear window didn't work I found water in the housing. Worth a shot.

Thanks, I will definitely look into that!

Regarding the radio, I bet the switch or sensor or whatever that detects if a tape has been inserted is somehow functioning backwards. Don't know enough about it to do anything but speculate, though. If you like, you can have my old head unit to play with. Completely functional with code, but its volume potentiometer is bad, so it crackles and pops when you turn it.

Thanks! That could come in handy, maybe I'll mess with mine a bit and see what happens. I may go to after market if I can find something classy enough

Good to see another member in Bellingham... Is that your Imola S4 avant too? There are quite a few newer and older audis around... I'n in north B'ham as well.

Good to know you're around! No, that avant belongs to NWB5. He has one brother in town with a tornado red URS4 and another brother in town with a brilliant black 200 20v sedan

Wanted to share the info I got back from AoA this morning. Super awesome knowing the production numbers.