Here We Go Again- Building Another Audi

[19birel]

So much to my dismay my BMW met an untimely end at the beginning of summer and was totaled. I LOVED the car, 180k miles and solid as a rock, always put a smile on my face whenever I was behind the wheel. Here is a pic of old "Effy" in her prime.


Now to find a replacement, I very nearly just bought another e60, but decided that I wasn't buying anything high mileage without a detailed service history as I needed something reliable that I could drive long term. Earlier this year my dad bought a MK7 GTI from Copart and we rebuild it, virtually new car with only 9k miles for under $10k all in, total bargain. I decided to do the same thing but couldn't find any GTIs within budget (my one rule was it had to be a 6MT which made things trickier). I started widening my search from VW Golf variants (I was also looking at TDIs) and began looking at Audis. Some of you may remember my B5 build where I took a junkyard bound A4 1.8T turned it into a my daily.

Last thing I expected was to repeat that, albeit with a newer version of that car. Then one night browsing IAAI I stumbled on this. Monsoon Grey 2013 Audi A4 Premium Plus Quattro with 57k miles, sport package, MMI Nav+ w/WIFI, Bang & Olufsen sound system, Advanced Key, and most importantly, a 6-speed manual (proud to say I have never owned an auto!).


The day it was picked up from IAAI




My two mangled Germans (BMW is currently being parted out)



With 57k miles it's not quite new like my dad's GTI, but it was cheaper and still much newer and lower mileage than anything else I've ever owned so I can't complain at all.

What Did the car need?
-Passenger Headlight

-Hood

-Hood Hinges

-Passenger Fender

-Bumper

-Grill

-Core Support

-Radiator

-Fender Rail repair

-N75 Valve

-Airbox

-Vacuum Check Valve

-Fog Light

-Some Random little bits

That's all I have time for now, stay tuned for more updates!

[Porterhousestk]

Dang dude sorry to hear about the E60 I enjoyed seeing your posts about it... Good luck with the new Audi, it looks like a nice salvageable car!

[Darkyoshi154]

Sucks about the BMW but that's quite the step up! Def gonna follow!

[19birel]

Dang dude sorry to hear about the E60 I enjoyed seeing your posts about it... Good luck with the new Audi, it looks like a nice salvageable car!

Yeah I'm still bummed about the 5er, but this car has a lot of potential so I'm stoked!

Sucks about the BMW but that's quite the step up! Def gonna follow!

Thanks!, the BMW was great but having a car that's 6 years newer with 120k fewer miles will be nice, being that it's turbo charged it'll be fun doing performance mods to it along the way as well!

[hinrichs]

Damn dude, sucks to hear about the E60 but glad you are okay. Pumped to see you turn around the A4 tho.

[19birel]

Damn dude, sucks to hear about the E60 but glad you are okay. Pumped to see you turn around the A4 tho.

Yeah losing the BMW really sucks, but it kept safe so for that I am very thankful; onwards and upwards now!

Time to continue the story! So the first thing I did was order a new bumper and grill, I saw this as the perfect chance to upgrade to the S-Line bumper and when I saw this one that included the gloss black S-Line grill, I jumped on it.

It needs a little work but it has to be painted anyways so it's no big deal, both the bumper and grill are genuine OEM Audi.


I also got the front end completely torn down with all the busted parts removed


Closer look at the fender rail that will need repaired (or replaced) by a shop.


I also had a go at cleaning up the Titanium Grey interior, the leather had a brown film of dirt on it so I cleaned a section to see how the rest of the interior would come out when I get around to detailing it. He's a 50/50 shot


Then I picked up some used hood hinges from AutoHaas, radiator and hood arrived but the radiator didn't fit (was the CSF brand one sold on RockAuto and ECS, they sent the right part but it is NOT plug an play as advertised) and the used ebay hood was bent like an origami when it arrived, it was too expensive to return ship it but thankfully they still sent me a full refund.

Bent hood





On the bright side I got a new N75 valve to replace my busted one and that went on with ease




Found this ballast among the bits of smashed headlight



I tested it on the driver side light and it still works, but makes a buzzing noise, so I'll likely replace it sooner or later.

My goal was to have the car as complete as possible before I took it to the shop to have the fender rail straightened to help them get it lined up more easily. Also I wanted the car to run and drive without any issue as well so it wouldn't be a pain loading & unloading from the trailer etc.

As always stay tuned for more updates!

[O2car]

So bad for your E60

Good luck for the audi's rebuilding

[19birel]

So bad for your E60

Good luck for the audi's rebuilding

Thanks!

Kinda forgot about this thread, still slightly behind but oh well.

Since the last update some more progress was made, got some goodies in the mail

New vacuum check valve (this was actually a little tricky to find but eBay came in clutch.)


New Nissens radiator


Replacement airbox (came with a new Mann air filter installed too!)


And a Forge DV spacer (this isn't actually a forge product, it's a clone I got on eBay for $13, pretty simple piece and seems to function well, more later)


Installed the DV spacer


Removed the mess that was the original intake and replaced with the new one.



As you can see the bent fender rail prevents it from being installed properly so that's why it's sitting awkward for now

Then i put the front end back together with the new radiator and core support


I took her for a quick spin around the block and couldn't stop smiling, the DV spacer sounds amazing, loud PSHH! PSHH! noises in-between shifts accompanied by a little flutter when getting off boost[>_<] $13 well spent IMO! The car itself drives perfectly fine and the engine pulls nicely. Felt good to drive it after staring at it in the garage for so long.

I also gave it a good clean inside and out.

Almost looks like a complete car there lol




The interior no longer smells like the previous owner's grot (although I still need to go back do some touchups) and the exterior stripped of the grime that it had accumulated at the insurance yard and in my garage.

Also mocked up the S-Line bumper just for kicks, seems to fit well on the drivers side


Next stop was the body shop! Dropped it off last night to have the mangled fender rail pulled. You'll notice the bent up hood I bought is on the car, I ended up getting a refund and was told to keep it due to shipping costs, i asked if he could fix it since the thing was basically free and predictably the answer was no haha, oh well.

[19birel]

So I ordered another hood, this time brand new aftermarket, and it arrived damaged beyond repair. That issue took way too long to resolve. Then I ordered a new OEM hood from another company, and a day later my order was cancelled because they couldn't ship it safely (not sure why they listed it on the site if they can't actually sell you it lol). After a bunch more runaround, I finally gave up and called the dealership, spending more than double what I had budgeted on a hood, at least it's new and OEM and should arrive in perfect shape. Who knew hoods were so hard to buy.

On the bright side though some slight progress has still been made. Firstly, the bent fender frame rail was straightened out and seems to line up nicely (sorry I forget to take a pic when I saw the car last) and I also have nearly finished sanding and filling in the minor damage that was on the S-Line bumper I had picked up.





Just smoothing out the major imperfections to save my paint guy some time and myself some $$$, it's coming along well.

Also received a used headlight from eBay


lots of scratches on the lens but from a distance they're not noticeable and it was super cheap. In the spring I can just replace the lenses on both lights and that'll give me a chance to do a proper amber delete as well.

I also picked up a set of used S-Line fog lights from an Audizine member


Fast forward a week and the new hood from the dealership arrived and it was in perfect condition! Took it over to my body guy and helped him get it lined up with the replacement fender I purchased. We spent the entire day getting everything lined up, and when looking back on the experience I'm glad I purchased OEM body parts because knowing that the panels were straight made it easier to determine when the car itself needed some persuasion with a hammer haha.

Heres the fender rail that was straightened out


New OEM hoof lined up with used OEM fender. Fender is already painted monsoon grey but it will get resprayed as it has some deep scratches




Also, when i bought the hood the dealership claimed I needed to spend $50 on "sound insulation", this is what they gave me[>_<]

$50 piece of foam tape....yeah that's getting returned lol

Now we're completely caught up, so this week, the body guy will remove a dent from the driver's side fender and paint the underside of the hood. Then, I'll probably head back this weekend to help him refit the hood so he can paint the top of the hood, fenders, and bumper together! We're getting close[]

[Fruttolo]

LOL at the 50$ sound insulation

[Vadius]

I did not know that in Germany, too, they buy broken cars with USA

[issa_m3]

Looks like a rad build

[19birel]

LOL at the 50$ sound insulation

There's big squares of the stuff inside the fenders, I can only imagine how much they charge for those haha

Looks like a rad build

Thanks man

[sarahkatezm254]

That's so sad when hearing this. Good luck with Audi building.

[19birel]

So finally another update! The painting and body work has taken longer than expected but so far things are looking good and I'm told everything will be done this week. I went to see the car this past weekend to get the hood alignment finalized before it and the fenders get painted, as well as check out the body and paint work that had already been done.

Here is the painted bumper, he basically undid 90% of the body work I had performed prior to dropping it off and now there is no evidence of it having been previously damaged.




Some orange peel is visible, but this is prior to wet sanding and polishing so I'm chuffed with the result so far.


Here is the work done to the used fender I purchased, the edge was bent out slightly but that has been fixed!


Dent fixed on original driver's side fender

Now when we were aligning the hood it was sitting too low on the passenger side. The hood stops rest on the fender rail which was twisted up during the accident, it had previously been straightened out but it was still bent down a little bit. Here was the advanced frame machine we used to adjust it....floor jack with a metal bar [>_<]



It did the trick though and after some more finagling the gaps are pretty good!







Like I said the fenders and hood should be painted up this week, and then it will be a matter of reassembly and having a new windshield installed for it to get inspected!

[19birel]

So finally the post we've all been waiting for!! I got a call last night that the car was done being painted and that I should come check it out.






These pics were prior to any polishing, I think some light wet sanding had been done in certain areas though.

For a budget paint job I'm very pleased with the outcome. It's not perfect, and because he didn't blend in with the doors the match isn't 100% seamless, but given my tight budget constraints and the cost of the project I think It'll still be pretty nice. Plan is to pick it up Friday, and hopefully get it put back together this weekend!

[Beemernut]

thank you for your input

[19birel]

So I got the car home a put some work into it this weekend. I was having some trouble with the passenger headlight; first off, I found out that I accidentally purchased an AFS headlight. The eBay ad never specified and seeing as it was literally the cheapest used xenon without major damage I just assumed it wasn't, my bad. Both my original ballasts from that side (xenon and drl) got pretty banged up so I ended up replacing the xenon ballast with one from a MK7 GTI (it was free) and luckily the LED ballast actually worked fine so I just sealed the crack in the housing so moisture doesn't get in.



Next thing was getting the light mounted, but I ran into an issue because this bracket was bent in the crash and it was pushing the bottom of the fender in too far as a result


I bent the brace back the best I could (it's a curved piece to it's hard to tell where it was originally) I also shimmed it and messed around with the brackets on the light as well getting it from 7mm to 3mm off of the measurement of the driver's side

(peep the tinted reflector [] )

It's not perfect, but it's about the same as the driver's side now so I will begin adjusting both of the lights to close up the gaps as there is a larger gap at the top of the light I forgot to picture.

I did a few other things that I forgot to photograph, small things like adding these rubber grommets to the radiator mounts




I also test fitted one of my wheels on the A7 parts car as I'll be swapping over the A7s 2-piston calipers and 356mm rotors as I hear it's a direct swap. They're so close to fitting, looks like I'll need a 5mm spacer though haha



I'll probably paint them, just don't know what color yet. (and yes I'll do something about the curb rash on the wheels lol)

And just for kicks I mocked up the front bumper

[hinrichs]

Looking good painted, glad you are able to get things lined up so well.

[19birel]

Looking good painted, glad you are able to get things lined up so well.

Thanks man! Aligning the body panels was definitely a pain but I'm satisfied with the results. The headlights are like 90% right now, a few more tweaks and they should be good

[psl2019]

Check my site

[malik0272]

You're making some good progress!

[19birel]

You're making some good progress!

Thanks!

So small update, school has been consuming most of my time but I've been tinkering with the car here and there when I can. One of the main issues has been the headlights. Beyond not being totally satisfied with the fitment yet, I've also had a "Headlight Range Control Defective" error popping up on the dash that simply would not clear as well as a parking brake malfunction warning. The range control error is a result of the replacement headlight being AFS, and as this error pops up on the dash I was worried that it would be reason for the car to fail inspection. The parking brake warning perplexed me because it was functioning perfectly fine.

Clearing code was no help as I mentioned so I studied the fuse diagrams and found that 1) I was missing fuse #8 on the driver's side panel (related to multiple things including electro-mechanical parking brake) so I replaced it, and 2) I removed fuse #12 which is for headlight control and parking system. The result was an error free dash!Only issues are that as a result of pulling fuse #12 my parking sensors are now disabled (camera still works) and I don't have headlight leveling (It didn't work previously though). Should be adequate to pass inspection though and then I'll either save up for another light or wait and get E-codes.



In other news my 5mm spacers arrived


So I can put these bad boys on

I'm thinking of waiting to install these until my stock pads are worn, but will see haha

Also since getting Carista I have done a few coding mods- enabled ADS, tail lights as DRLs, mirror tilt in reverse, ambient lighting, disabled amber side markers. Couple more I want to go back and do later tho.

Next order of business is to fix this water leak


It's coming from this fitting that goes from the coolant res. to the top of the radiator, I think it's a manufacturing defect in the radiator but hopefully some teflon tape will take care of it


Once I do that and obsess over headlight fitment again, and get a new hood latch (mine is bent beyond repair) the car will go back together completely lol.

[Quillhill36]

Loving the constant progression of this thing. Is the plan just to daily this or will it be sort of a project also?

[19birel]

Loving the constant progression of this thing. Is the plan just to daily this or will it be sort of a project also?

Thanks! The plan is to daily it once I get it road worthy, but I am going to continue to mod it as well.

Since it will be a daily the mods will be carefully thought out as I don't want to get into a stock version of the car and think "darn, I ruined mine a little" haha. But the goal is to eventually cover all the bases to one degree or another.