Project Chronicle

I have now owned the 1995 Audi S6 Avant for about two years, grabbing it in the summer of 2022 off of Martha's Vineyard. While I undoubtedly liked the car - the 5-cylinder noise pushed through the Stromung exhaust is reason enough to love it - the driving experience wasn't good enough to make it an absolute home run. 

My shop in Rhode Island did some serious heavy lifting with getting it prepared for regular road use, including the intense timing belt job, fixing the busted HVAC controls, and refreshing the suspension. However, it was clear they hit a point with it where the S6 needed to move along. The steering felt disconnected from the front end and the clutch action was awful; the engagement point was borderline non-existent. 

I knew it needed a clutch and so I used my new shop here in Annapolis to get it replaced. However, when I brought it back with a serious humming sound from the front end, they flagged the need for new wheel bearings, hubs, and brake calipers, noting all of those pieces were long overdue for replacement.

What a transformation - seriously, You now get to experience just how much sheer grip this car has. I have never been impressed by AWD cars but I've also never driven one with much in the way of horsepower. Decent power plus layers upon layers of grip makes for a very fun drive, and the S6 is a completely different car with these improvements made in the front end. 

Just goes to show you that you never know which single improvement (or improvements) can transform the driving experience from underwhelming to exceptional. 

The Lexus LX450, after missing in action for over a year following an unplanned engine rebuild, finally made its way down to Maryland after its final stop at my faithful stereo shop back in Rhode Island (more on that later - I'm not a tech guy, but I am psyched with what got installed). I was overjoyed, as the truck drove pretty decent for a rig with the 3-inch lift, and it felt like the four-door anvil I always knew it could be.

Now, I'm prone to ignoring warning signs when I want everything to be perfect, so when I filled up the tank for the first time in over a year, I didn't pay much mind to the heavy smell of fuel. And when it required $89 of premium fuel to fill up the tank, I wrote it off to not knowing exactly how large the tank was. And when I blew through that gas in about 4 days of fairly normal driving, I figured it was due to the engine stlll breaking in. 

It wasn't until I stopped to fill up a second time and take some pictures of the truck from a ground-level angle that I noticed a heavy drip off the rear suspension that seemed to coincide with the fuel nozzle I had jammed on autopilot and stuck in the filler neck. Cease fueling immediately and drive off with my $60 for 3/4 of a tank of mid-grade. 

So, we have a new problem. The homecoming queen has herpes. I suspect (and hope) we are just looking at a spent gasket around the top of the tank where the sender resides, which would make sense for a truck that hasn't seen much use and zero fill-ups since sometime around December 2022. My new shop in Annapolis conveniently has a few Land Cruisers in its customer fleet, so off it goes after a mere week in operation. Tell me again how charming old cars are?  

My 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 2.3-16 Cosworth has left the body shop after being there for over a year. To say the owners of the shop were glad to see it go is an understatement; there is still some finish work left to do but hopefully, if it does go back, it will be in the paint booth for a day or so and then completely done.

Right now, it is back at my mechanic's for the second phase of mechanical work that will hopefully see the car fully sorted out after starting with the basics of getting it operational, which took place over three years ago. The first order of business was to replace the chain tensioner, a known failure point, and completely devastating to the these engines should it fail. 

Upon inspection, there was a good deal of slack in the chain. This was not entirely unexpected, and I bought both the tensioner and the chain when I acquired the Cosworth in 2018, figuring it would not have been done based on who owned the car last. At the same time, the water pump was replaced along with the thermostat. 

Other updates include replacing crushed sections of hydraulic hard lines supporting the rear load leveling system; these were obliterated when the 190E was moved by forklift in the junkyard. In addition, the Cosworth-specific oil cooler that hangs adjacent to the radiator is an obsolete part that was removed in the salvage yard, stripping the threads on the oil lines in the process. The shop made it work on a temporary basis but the cooler was rendered junk when it was removed as part of the radiator removal process. Incredibly, a radiator shop in Rhode Island that maintains a large stash of obsolete components in a warehouse on the Cape had the *exact* replacement part, and OEM to boot. I'm blown away by that ridiculous stroke of good luck. 

A few more things to button up and then it's onto the interior for dash replacement. 

The 190E Cosworth, which arrived in my garage as a soggy, rotten, trash-filled mess from a Pennsylvania scrap yard five years ago last month, is near the finish line. I've lived in three houses since I bought this car, and I'm hopeful it will be a permanent fixture in my garage sometime in the next six months. 

The bodyshop is buffing out the paint and assembling the body kit. The interior is going back together. And those two details are super gratifying considering I bought a complete spare body kit and interior sometime in December 2018, all with the expectation I would someday have a car worth putting them on/in. 

Today, I ordered a wiper blade insert and two pieces of reproduction hardware for mounting the bodykit doglegs ahead of the rear wheel arches. Truly nitty-gritty stuff, and my body guy should have the car fully assembled by the weekend. Or so we think; there's always something that shows up missing. For instance, I plan on having the lenses replaced on the European headlights because - why not? Well, because, the car will be otherwise mint and pitted lenses will be a serious let-down. 

But don't get too excited: there's still a laundry list of mechanical work to be done before we're truly "done." 

My LX450 has finally left Jay's 4WD following the unplanned engine rebuild, and is now at my secret lair of a bodyshop to fix the rust in the rockers and mount a heavy-duty rear bumper.

The LX really has been a bigger project than expected. I knew it had rust in the rockers; I didn't know the rear cross member was held together via an aftermarket tow hitch. The engine rebuild, as previously discussed, was a complete surprise, so I'm nearing the end of my rope with delays and added expenses, but at least we're on the downward slope. 

The bodywork will consist of repairing both right and left side rockers, and patching together the rear cross member so the bumper can be mounted. The cross member isn't all that essential to the structural integrity, so we're not going to spend a ton of money and time fixing it. 

Final stop will be my trusted stereo shop in RI to update the headunit and then - after last driving it in February of this year - it will hopefully make its way down to Maryland. 

Nothing crazy to note here. Putting the car away for the winter in a week or so here - Whenever we get our first snow fall is usually the appropriate time. I also took an oil sample to send off to Black Stone Labs. Its a pretty cheap service, and I think it would be really cool to see what they say about my 272,000 mile engine. This was a great time to do it, because this oil was in the car all summer, and definitely saw some hard drives. Replaced the OEM Mann filter and added 4.5Qts of Valvoline 10W-40 Full Synthetic.

Really not that important, but I realized I did something backwards with my seasonal oil changes. Next time, I will keep the 10W-40 for my Spring time oil change, and then use the 5W-40 for my fall/winter oil change...Just helps a little with cold start oil flow. Cheers!

272,606 Miles at time of change 

This mod ended up being a little pricier than I anticipiated, but man was it worth it - The stock shifter in the E30 was coming up on 300,000 miles and 40 years old - Though I love the OEM setup, the way I drive this car calls for a slightly shorter and more precise shift. 

I got the UUC Short Throw Shift Kit with the optional Dual Sheer Selector Rod - This part has two rods on the physical gear selector, as the factory selector has one singular rod. The benefit of a DSSR is the distribution of tension on the selector, and always reduces play in the assembly, giving you a much more solid, and predictable feel.

I went with a Condor Speed Shop Tall Weighted Shift Knob. This one actually has a (removable) 110Gram counterweight in the shifter - giving you the option to take it out for a lighter shift feel. Feels much better with it in. 

Overall this mod changed the way the car feels when driving backroads, as I am able to switch between 2nd and 3rd gear much, much faster, and much more confidently. The old bushings had so much slop and play, I would actually find myself occasionally grinding gears during spirited drives, as the shifter often slipped or fell out of/into gear. 

When I first got the 1995 Audi S6 Avant home and off of Martha's Vineyard, I was giddy with having finally snagged a real deal, a car that was purchased for very little solely because I had the inside track on it coming up for sale. Of course, that euphoria eventually wears off once the realities of a project sets in - it's inevitable. 

The first big bites of maintenance were necessities, and not the kind you necessarily instantly appreciate. The timing belt absolutely had to be done, as prolonging that job risked a grenade-like situation where the belt snaps and the motor is an instant paperweight. Then, the suspension had to be refreshed; the control arms replaced; the HVAC blend box was dissected and repaired, yielding functional A/C. Along the way, a Stromung exhaust was fitted.

As you can see, the improvements gradually became more noticeable, and, quite frankly, fun. But one big job remained that I did not fully appreciate how transformative it would be until it was done - and that is a clutch replacement.

The clutch pedal had always been super firm and the engagement point very late. I knew it was tired, but after having the first job at my new shop here in Annapolis be a clutch, slave, and pressure plate replacement, I can honestly say I love the car all over again. I didn't realize just how bad the old clutch was, and how negatively it was impacting the driving experience. 

It is now a wholly enjoyable car to drive, and outside of a sagging headliner, I can't think of anything else I feel the need to address in the short term. 

My mechanic Jay called with the good news recently that the long-standing (and unintentionally long) Lexus LX450 / Toyota Land Cruiser project has finally hit its point of substantial completion - from the mechanical side, anyway.

The rebuilt engine has been turned up and run, with no apparent issues. Jay claims it runs well with no obvious issues arising from being torn down and rebuilt piece-by-piece after the long-festering headgasket issue revealed that the internal coolant intrusion has led to corrosion materializing between the head and the block. 

Jay has not only mated the decked and refreshed head with the cleaned-up block but also installed an Old Man Emu lift 3-inch lift kit, which looks fantastic in the photos he sent me. There's also a new ARB brush guard as well. A Gobi-X rear bumper is en route, and some IPF driving lamps will also be installed. Then, we kick it over to my body guy Nelson to fix the rust in the rear inner fenders; I may have him stick a slab of metal in the back to replace the rusty rear cross-member, but not sure if it really matters with the monster rear bumper on there.

More to come, but big time milestone days, for sure.