Found the most remarkable stuff B&W Tire Cleaner. Just spray it on the wheels and wash it off. To be fair, very light scrubbing might be required with extraordinary amounts of brake dust. When I first got my 100, I thought the line of brake dust was paint. No wheel cleaner would touch it. I sprayed this stuff on and it came right off. I know it is a "tire cleaner", but it works.
Word of advice: From what I read on other posts here and on audifans.com,
WD-40 tends to make the problem worse over time. Dirt collects and it kind
of gums up and gets sticky. Most recommended using a high-quality teflon
lubricant on the rails. So, I lubed the rails with the same stuff I use for
my bicycle chains (White Lightning chain lube). No problems for 8 months now.
--- Gary F
Better to use the Teflon spray Gary recommended or a dry graphite lubricant
/silicone spray which dries to the touch.
--- basecamper
If it is the trim strips against the outer door windows that seal moisture out, they just clip on. Lower the window and examine where the spaced clips are located using a flashlight. Then very carefully open the clip a bit with a long thin screw driver and work the trim upward to bring it loose. If you are replacing it, just grab it and pull it up. It is probably going to break up anyway.
sea foam.....i learned about this from my basic engine performance teacher. do this at own risk.if your car has more than 70,000 miles or more repeat yearly here after get engine up to normal operating temp.find a manifold vaccum port after throttle body.get a peice of hose attatch it to the manifold vaccum port suck in 1/2bottle of the sea foam or chemtool.shut off ignition allow to soak 15 minutes.restart suck the rest into intake at varying idle speeds.DO NOT LET THE CAR STALL after restart.run engine in park or nuetral until it stops smoking.alright bud thats straight from my notes and now i'm gonna tell you you better do this outside cause man your cars gonna smoke your gonna think what the h@&# he tell me to do to my car.but dude this works your car may somke for a few hours but when your done yuoll notice a big differance. also clean your metering plate and your throttle body with the same solevent but just put it in a bowl and use a tooth brush and a rag.you can get seafoam at advanced auto parts or a local place and the chemtool is at autozone both are about 5.00.
My suggestion is to start with the switch. Try to open up the switch and clean the contact with sand paper. The inner part of the switch holds onto the outer part--I will call it shell-- by 4 anchorages (hope you know what I am talking about here). Use a narrow blade screw driver or something similar to pry the anchors out one at a time. Do one side (two anchors) first. Then do the same for the other side. After all 4 anchors are clear, push the inner part out of the shell. Be careful here, I have seen two kinds of switch. One only has 4 anchors like above, the other kind has 6. The two extra anchors are on the button where you press to up and down your window. They are in the middle on both side of the button. What you can do is to widen the shell at that point and try to loose the anchor. Again, one side at a time. The button should come out after you loose both anchors. Then take the inner part of the switch out of the shell. Go ahead clean the contacts.
The leads of the switch are labeled by numbers. Here is the whole set up of
the leads on the switch:
1, 2 power out from the switch to the motor. If 1 is positive then the
window comes down. If 2 is positive then the window comes up.
3, 4, 5 power into the switch. 4 is positive. 3 and 5 are negative.
Q U E S T I O N : Could you please tell me why I should buy premium over regular grade gasoline? Is it really worth the difference? ------ Junyong P.
A N S W E R : In most cars, there is absolutely no reason to use premium instead of regular. According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), premium gas accounts for about 20 percent of total gasoline sales in this country, despite the fact fewer than 10 percent of cars on the road were designed to burn the higher octane fuel. The result: U.S. drivers spend about $1.7 billion per year more for gasoline than they should.
The octane rating is a measure of how well gasoline resists that lawn-mower like rattle and sputter known as engine knock. If your engine is running at 100 percent efficiency, the compressed fuel and air mixture inside the combustion chamber burns evenly, fanning out from the spark plug until all the fuel in the chamber is consumed. But no engine runs quite that efficiently. Instead, a chemical reaction occurs in the unburned fuel mixture in the combustion chamber before the flame created by the spark plug arrives. That reaction can create hydrocarbon molecules that have a nasty habit of auto-igniting before the spark plug-initiated wave of flame arrives. When auto-ignition occurs, a rapid increase in air pressure inside the chamber results as both the auto-ignition gases and the spark plug-initiated flame expand. The increase in pressure yields a distinctive knocking sound and can cause severe engine damage.
The octane rating was developed in the 1920s when researchers discovered that certain hydrocarbon molecules resist breaking down into the particles that are susceptible to auto-ignition. Among them are molecules with eight carbon atoms - known as iso-octanes. The higher the octane rating, the more resistant the gasoline is to developing molecules that can cause knocking.
No Performance Boost
A small percentage of sports cars and luxury vehicles with high-performance, high-compression engines do need premium fuel to run their best. Fortunately, most cars on the road today that were built to consume higher octane gasoline come equipped with electronic knock sensors. Pump in regular and the knock sensors tell the engine management system to run a little less efficiently, protecting it from the ill effects of knocking, but with a consequent minor loss of power.
If your vehicle is among the 90 percent of cars designed to use regular gasoline, here's what will happen if you spend the extra 20 cents a gallon or so for premium: not much. According the Federal Trade Commission, using a higher octane gasoline than that recommended by your owner's manual "won't make your car perform better, go faster, get better mileage or run cleaner."
The FTC has put its money where its mouth is, suing a number of major oil companies over the years for making misleading and unsubstantiated claims about the benefits of high octane fuel. The agency estimates that the majority of consumers who buy premium gasoline are spending an average of an extra $100 a year for no real benefit. Think of it this way: if you've been pumping premium gas into your family sedan for the last 10 years, that $1,000 that you wasted would have made a nice start on the down payment for a sleek little sports car that will really fly when you fill 'er up with high-octane juice.
Q U E S T I O N: Motor oil: SAE 30, 10W-40, 20W-50. What do all those number and letters mean? ------- Danny S.
A N S W E R: Many thanks for your query. I may be an Answer Geek, but I'm no gear head, and it's always nice to increase my limited store of knowledge about cars and engines. At the very least, Danny, answering your question will save you, me and others like us from that withering stare we get at the gas station or auto parts store when we ask for a quart of oil and then have to own up to the fact that we have no idea what grade of oil our car requires. For men, that is one of those dreadful moments designed to amplify whatever feelings of masculine inadequacy you may already be struggling with.
Here's what I found out:
The thing to keep in mind about motor oil is that its main job is to protect your engine from wear caused by the friction created when moving parts rub against each other at high speeds and high temperatures. The quality that allows motor oil to lubricate those moving parts is viscosity, which describes the ability of a liquid to flow. In a laboratory, viscosity is usually assessed by measuring the flow of a liquid through a tube with an opening of a fixed size at a standard temperature, or by measuring the resistance that liquid exerts on a rotating shaft in a container. The standard unit of measure for viscosity is either the centistoke or the centipoise. Bigger numbers mean greater resistance to flow and higher viscosity. Water, for example, has a very low viscosity and it flows quite easily. Molasses, which is thick and goopy, has a very high viscosity. Needless to say, neither one is a good bet as a substitute for motor oil.
Before we get to meaning of the numbers on a quart of oil, you need to understand one more thing: Newtonian fluid dynamics. As you may or may not know, many liquids obey Newton's Viscosity Law, which in simple terms states that viscosity varies directly in relation to external forces. Typically for Newtonian fluids, lower temperature or higher pressure raises viscosity in a straightforward way as friction increases between molecules. In these liquids, more friction means greater viscosity, plain and simple.
But not all liquids behave in accordance with the dictates of Newtonian Viscosity. There is a class of fluids for which viscosity does not change in a linear fashion in reaction to pressure or heat. These rebels of the liquid world are known as non-Newtonian fluids. In such liquids, for example, viscosity may decrease as temperature rises until a critical point is reached and then the liquid may suddenly become more viscous.
What does this have to do with the numbers on a quart of oil, you ask? One of the tricks for making good motor oil is that its viscosity must be low enough so that it will flow when cool, but not so low that it fails to lubricate at high temperatures. Most pure petroleum lubricants are Newtonian fluids, and at either the top or bottom of the temperature range, they just don't work well any more. In recent years, engineers have discovered that adding certain carbon polymers to petroleum lubricants will turn them into non-Newtonian fluids that are much better at protecting a car engine under a wide range of conditions. Those polymers are called viscosity modifiers, and motor oil makers have learned to add the just the right combination of viscosity modifiers to create lubricants that flow easily at very low temperatures while maintaining enough viscosity to lubricate the moving parts in an engine at very high temperatures.
Viscous Cycle
So, those numbers on a quart of oil? They refer to oil viscosity, based on a scale established by the Society of Automotive Engineers (which is where the "SAE" comes from). The scale rates oil from a low of 5 to a high of 50. As you've probably noticed, most automobile motor oils have two numbers. These are multi-grade oils, which means they are non-Newtonian fluids.
The first number describes viscosity at low temperatures. The second number refers to viscosity at normal engine operating temperatures. Some examples: the "5" in a 5W-30 motor oil will protect an engine down to an air temperature of about -25 degrees Fahrenheit. The "10" in a 10W-30 is good if the lowest temperature where you live is likely to be in the neighborhood of -10 or so. As for the "30," that is well-suited for the typical temperatures that most cars operate at these days. If you are driving a racing car, or pulling a heavy trailer on a hot summer day, you might want the higher-temperature protection afforded by a motor oil with a second number of, say, 50. (As for the "W," it indicates that the oil is designed to work well in cold weather.)
In the old days, motor oils came in only the single grade variety. Back then, if you lived in a cold climate, you'd would have to use a different oil grades in different seasons, switching from an SAE 30 in the summer to an SAE 10W in the winter.
Which oil should you use? Don't ask me. Like I said, I'm no gear head. My suggestion: Refer to the owner's manual that came with your car. It will tell which grade to select. Personally, I wouldn't get too creative about my choice of motor oil unless you know a lot more about cars than this Answer Geek does.
And my answer the next time someone asks me what kind of oil I need for my vehicle? First I'm going to ask them if their selection of motor oils includes any non-Newtonian fluids. Then I'm going to inquire about centistoke values. After that, I'll give them a withering stare to make up for all the times that I felt like an idiot when I thought "W" stood for "weight" and I didn't have clue what grade of oil my car required. Finally, I'll ask for 10W-30 oil because that's what my owner's manual recommends. That is, if I don't get nervous and forget.
Q U E S T I O N: When I'm filling up my car at the gas station, how does the pump sense that the tank is full and then automatically shut itself off? ----- Kate S.
A N S W E R: After spending the last few weeks tackling such weighty topics as the human genome project, space travel, and, of course, why eating crunchy food appears to make your monitor flicker, this question comes as something of a relief. Back in the old days, explaining how mechanical gadgets worked was your average Answer Geek's stock in trade - it was all hydraulics or capillary action, how one kind of mechanical energy was converted to another or the way the gears meshed. Now, of course, it's a whole different story. These days it's all about microprocessors and scanner and barcodes, the storage and transmission of 1s and 0s or the flow of ionized particles. Don't get me wrong, the technology is fantastic, but when a group of Answer Geeks gets together for a beer after a long day of answering questions, you'll often hear us lamenting the old days when we had the satisfaction that came with feeling like we had rolled up our sleeves and gotten our hands dirty.
An Old Technology
The automatic shutoff on a gas pump is definitely not one of the miracles of modern technology. But it is a very cool little me chanical device. When gasoline flows through the nozzle, it passes through something called a venturi, which is a tube with a narrow throat that changes the speed and pressure of the liquid passing through, creating a vacuum. The nozzle also contains a very small tube that begins just above the open end of the spout.
The next time you fill up your car, take a look at the nozzle and you'll see a small hole. That tube runs back up into the fuel pump handle and as gas flows through the nozzle, the vacuum pressure created by the venturi causes air to be sucked up through the tube. As long as the tank is not completely full, air flows unimpeded up into the handle, and nothing much happens except that fuel continues to pour into your car.
As your gas tank fills, the fuel level rises until it covers the hole at the end of the nozzle. Suddenly, the flow of air stops and the vacuum pressure begins to build - think of what happens when you suck on a straw without putting it in water; if you place your finger over the open end, the flow of air stops and the pressure inside decreases until the straw collapses. In the nozzle handle, the vacuum pressure builds until it forces a small diaphragm inside the handle to move. That movement triggers a lever that pops the handle trigger, shutting off the flow of gasoline.
Pretty clever, eh? And it's all done without transistors or sensors. No light-emitting diodes. No charge-coupled devices. Just levers and vacuum pressure. And a venturi. I tell you, my fellow Geeks are going to by psyched when they hear that I got to mention a venturi in this week's column.
That is the switch controls the cold start valve. I was trying to follow the wires from the cold start valve. But it is not that obvious where the wires go.
How would I go check it?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Screwed into the back of the cylinder head. Part # depends on your most normally encountered ambient temperature. There are 2 options.
With the engine cold you can pull the cold start valve out and crank the engine.(only 1 time) See if the cold start injector fires. Extreme fire hazard!!! If the cold start valve sprays, the thermo switch works.
If you are experiencing hard starting and long cranking times when the engine is cold, its usually leaking injectors, not the cold start valve/thermo time switch.
see SJM site.
Tom Chudzinski
It's caused by the speed sensor being too far from the driveshaft. Here is all you want to know about speed sensors.
If a sensor is bad, the light will stay off when the car is started, and then come on after driving the car from 10 feet to 2 miles. If the problem is elsewhere, it may turn the light on before moving the car.
To find the bad sensor, listen carefully after starting your car for unusual noises from one wheel. That's the one with the bad sensor. The noise is the ABS kicking in and out, until it decides to shut down. You can hook up a DMM to the sensor outputs, raise the car and spin the wheel. You get a square wave (A/C) from the sensor. The actual value is irrelevant, matching them is. Basically, you want to get the same reading from all sensors spinning the wheel approximately the same speed by hand. Try removing the sensor, cleaning it, and reinstalling it until it rubs the hub. DON'T drive it like this you may damage it!! You must back it out slightly. It should not rub, but be very close. They should "bottom out" while installing, without hitting the sensors on the driveshaft. The sensors too far from the driveshaft will give you pedal "boing" -- this is a groaning/spring sound just as you come up to a stop. The sensors too close will give instant ABS pedal kick in. Too far out tends to shut off ABS quicker than too close.
If you can't get the light to go out at all, you might have a fault in the center differential lock switch, or one of the sensors is just bad. Worn or crudded driveshaft splines can do it too. There is an inspection/water drain at the bottom of each strut, you can sometimes get a brass bottle brush in there, though pulling the driveshaft out is easier, and about a 20 minute job. First check for proper sensor output, then check the differential switch, then the driveshafts. Rarely does that ABS box go bad. Sensors out of alignment usually allow the light to come on till the first brake app or 20-30 seconds, whichever comes first.
FOUND! An inexpensive source for _THE REAL THING_. Genuine PENTOSIN fluid, reg. $16.50, @ $7.99. PAP, Porsche Audi Parts, 1-800-944-2964. These guys have all kinds of Porsche/Audi/VW stuff at GREAT prices. Very knowledgable too!
If it idles high its "metered" air. I would clean the ISV. Check the engine grounds. Check the throttle switch.
I wrote this awhile ago:
Thought I'd post the results/conclusion for those who may have idle problems in the future:
The car had a rock solid 800 rpm idle. Suddenly while driving idle would not decrease below 1200 rpm. Would climb to 1400 rpm then drop again to 1200. Frequency was about one cycle per second.
Airflow passes thru the MAF (metered air) and enters the intake manifold at the point where the "Michelin Man" hose connects to the intercooler. If you remove the MM hose you will see the throttle plate and a cast air channel which allows air to bypass the closed (at idle) throttle plate and enter the other end of the intake manifold via the ISV. This is why the MM hose has the tear drop shape.
With the throttle plate closed (foot off the gas) the throttle switch directs the ISV controller (marked as Idle Volume Control on my fuse panel, gotta love the translation) to regulate air flow into the intake manifold using the ISV. The ISV contains an air regulator disk controlled by a solenoid. With current applied to the solenoid the disk will move toward the electrical connector providing a path for air to enter the intake manifold. With no power applied a return spring returns the disk to the shut position.
It was suggested that a vacuum leak could cause the problem. It was not clear to me how a leak could cause the engine rpm to increase. It seemed that the increase in rpm was likely due to an increase in metered air and the engine computer was responding accordingly. I felt a vacuum leak would cause unmetered air to enter the intake manifold resulting in an idle stumble.
As suggested I cleaned the ISV and then tested it with a 12 volt/half amp power supply. The disk moved freely and snapped shut when power was removed. One notable difference was that the replacement ISV would not pass air when I blew into the inlet side of the ISV. The problem ISV would allow air to pass.
I believe the return spring in the failed ISV was fatigued from years of fighting the solenoid and no longer has the spring force to seal against engine vacuum thus resulting in the increase in "metered" air during idle. I'll see if I can break it open an repair it with a stiffer spring. I'll let you know.
JAS
'86 4000cs (RIP)
'86 5000CS QT
Mine had loud static when it was turned. Had no luck ad disassembling radio and the switch was probably not servicable. Figured I would replace the part but tried to spray DOxit (Caig Labs) in the side of the knob. Static stopped and has been fine for months since. Tuner cleaned should work about the same. I would just have the radio off when spraying. Can't hurt, Might help.
Tony
'91 100Q 5spd
hmm I should be working, but here is how you do it ...sorry for any spelling mistakes, grammer ... but u will get the idea.....................
tools needed
-soldering iron / solider
-exacto knife and small scissors
- needle nose and reg pliers
- phillips screw driver and a slot
- meter for continuity test.
- electrical tape
General info
the seat has to be moved first to the rear most position to get at the front bolts. Don't forget to at this time to unplug the heated seat plug..shoud be attached to the base of the seat.( this is where you do your testing from ) and also the seat motors plug. The seats are bolted to the floor on the front by two bolts .. the rear legs are on rails.
Now after the bolts are out move the seats forward by hand to expose the two rear rail stoppers. The rear stopper that runs along the middle of the drive tunnel is long .(unscrew using a Phillips s driver ) Slid seat out of rail ...be careful not to lose the white or black rail inserts that are attached to the seat feet, sometimes they fall off .... they stop rattling and help movement along the rail.
Once test are complete ( test can be done in the car, but repair is best done outside of car )
Heater 1 seat, bum
Heater 2 back
Testing plug Heater 1 Seat and Heater 2 back
Plug is found under seat
looks like this
---(1) ** ---(2) --- (3)
---(4) ** ---(5) --- (6)
** space in plug between connectors
-to check the Heater Seat 1 (bum) check continuity between 2& 6 ( yellow strip (black) & Blue strip (brown ) )
-to check the Back heater 2 check continuity between 1&4 brown/blue & brown.
- 5&3 is for the temp button in the seat ( temp sensor )
Heater 1 seat ass but bum ( HOW TO TAKE SEAT APART )
- take cover off of seat controls , up , down, sideways etc
- pop hinge covers of L & R
- unscrew hinge screws L&R ( you need to do this so that you can get the fabric up off the seat )
- now go to the back of the seat ... you will notice a skid plate fabric at the bottom of the seat ( black ) this sort of connects to the fabric of your seat ( leather, gray fabric etc ) Both of these fabric are shoved into a small channel to hold the upper and lower .... pull this apart.
- now at the L & R near the hinges .. there is a wire that runs along the base seat inside the fabric of the seat .... loosen off both sides .... looks like common bailing wire.
- start from one side of the seat and work your way around the base. What you are looking for is clips and plugs than hold the skirt of the seat down. Be careful as there are a couple metal clips that you could miss. undo all these.
- now pull the fabric up over the hinges , front and sides.
-NOTE fabric is attached to small straight wire rods. These coat hanger size rods or wires go horizontally in both Longitude and latitude directions.
this is what it looks like
note there are two rods that hold the seat fabric to the cushion.
top of seat
----------------fabric-------------------------------
fabric is attached to rod below
L .....................rod.............................................. Right
L........................rod.............................................right
the Rod above is kind of attached to the cushion
the two rods are held together with small circular clips
This system of little rods goes along the pleat lines of the seat.
-Okay now start and peel the front of the seat back and you will come to your first Rod this will be held by about four circular clips. Take the pliers or needle nose and you have to twist them off.
-Once you have finished the first lateral rod you will have to work on the longitudinal rods.
-now that you have the fabric off the seat you will see the white pad that the little wires go though..... before you start cutting away at things look for a small brown stain ( burn marks )
that is where the brake is usually, not always.
-attach your meter at rear of the seat you will see two wire attach your meter to one of the wires ... that is the circuit of the heating element. Work your way up this wire until you have no beep
... ( using the little metal probe to genitally break the surface of the wire ) look for the break in this area ,, most of the time it is a fold where one of the rods has been.
-Fix with a small amount of soldier . Too much solder is bad = it creates a higher resistance and thus More HEAT to that area. Trust me my wife's ass can attest to that!!!
Now the fun part take all those nice little wire clips and straighten them out and make them round with a gap so you can get them over the rods ... the first couple are a real bitch but you will get the hang of it. Work from the back to the front.
This job can be about a three to five hour job ( for your first seat )
just do the revers to put the seat back together.
To do the BACK same sort of procedure as seat.....
any questions please get back to me at David.morralee@aaaaaaaaaaAlcatel.com take the a's out
regards
David
I have done this work three times before this writeup. Each time I discovered some kind of tricks to make the job easier. By the time to do the next one, the tricks learned before have long been forgotten. So here is the cure of that.
First, the tools. A pipe wrench as the substitution of the official tools. It should be big enough to hold the big cap that holding the strut insert, yet small enough to fit through the shock spring. The one I used is with maximum openning of 3 inches if memory serves me right. A 22mm off angle box wrench is a great help for loosen and fasten the top nut. A vise grip or a 7mm allen key depends on the insert you have. 13mm socket or wrench whichever avialable to you. A lot of strength or an extension pipe that fits the pipe wrench. These are all that needed.
Now the precedure. Note that it is not a good idea to switch the orders. I bet you would regret it if you do.