[Sepp]

2Bennett is expensive.

There was a private sale set of front and rear euro bumpers for sale a while ago. 2000 for the whole lot.
That's a good deal!

There's way of shortening the bumper shocks for the front and the rear, but it's not reversible...
Pretty much involves removing the bumper impact shocks, drilling holes in them ,and compressing them down all the way. (a rubberized goo is in the shock), and will exit the driled out holes when you compress the shock.
I did my front, and rear.
Many folks do it, and I agree it makes the car look better.

 

[jlayne]

Very cool. They are expensive...but they're good. Got a whole tour of their facility of their last month. Pretty amazing actually. They provided a whole lot of insight. Not nearly as much though as being on forums like this. Thanks again for all your help. I truly appreciate it. Back to work on the car: shift linkage.

 

[ralleyquattro]

2Bennett is expensive.

There was a private sale set of front and rear euro bumpers for sale a while ago. 2000 for the whole lot.
That's a good deal!

There's way of shortening the bumper shocks for the front and the rear, but it's not reversible...
Pretty much involves removing the bumper impact shocks, drilling holes in them ,and compressing them down all the way. (a rubberized goo is in the shock), and will exit the driled out holes when you compress the shock.
I did my front, and rear.
Many folks do it, and I agree it makes the car look better.

I have done it so that it is fully reversable, what you do is take the shock and unscrew it from the housing (there is a 13mm locknut).. then drill out the threads in the housing.
Reinstall locknut, reinstall the bumper and push all the way in.
The reversable part is that since you have lost the threads on the housing, all you need to do is install another nut on the inside before the housing goes back on, that way you have two nuts holding the chock rod in position, and then you can not push the bumper in.
BTDT few times now and it works great and as I said fully reversable.

Hope this helps.

PS, mind sending me the VIN so I can add it to the database I keep??

 

[jlayne]

Hmmm...so I took off the shock and the locknut but don't quite understand what I should do next. Do I drill out this bolt?

 

[ralleyquattro]

Hmmm...so I took off the shock and the locknut but don't quite understand what I should do next. Do I drill out this bolt?

The black housing is threaded onto that stud, simply unbolt it.
Then once the stud is out of the housing drill a clearance hole so that the stud can go in without restriction.

Reinstall the lock nut and then install on the car... once on the car, slide the bumper in as far as you want/can.

HTH

 

[jlayne]

Ha! Beautiful! What a difference and simple too! Thanks for the info Martin and thanks for the idea Sepp! Can't wait to put the front bumper on tomorrow morning and do the same in the back!

 

[ralleyquattro]

Ha! Beautiful! What a difference and simple too! Thanks for the info Martin and thanks for the idea Sepp! Can't wait to put the front bumper on tomorrow morning and do the same in the back!

Just remember to have the locknut back on to prevent the bumper from pulling out (never seen that happen anyway, but you never know) and if you need to go back to stock, one nut on the inside and one on the outside should keep it extended like it was originally.

You are welcome! And thank you for taking pictures... if you don't mind I'll reference them whenever trying to expalin this to anyone.

Cheers

 

[jlayne]

Please do share and thank you. It was a little difficult to put the bumper back on as the shocks wanted to twist on me but I solved that with some ******* ingenuity, screwdrivers, and the car jack itself.

First, install the bumper and push it in as far as possible. Then place 2 small screwdrivers in the passenger side holes. Use your knees to lift up the bumper and place the screwdriver in the holes.

Once the screwdrivers are set move to the drivers side. Make sure the bumper is aligned horizontally before moving forward. Your pinky finger is a good tool to measure each side.

Next, get the car jack and place it in between the two holes and jack it up to get the Allen bolts into place. Tighten bolts just enough to hold it in place and lower jack.

Lastly, move to the passenger side, use jack to lift up bumper, install bolts, check alignment, and torque down all the bolts. Boom! You just shaved +1.5" off your bumper.

 

[ralleyquattro]

Lastly, move to the passenger side, use jack to lift up bumper, install bolts, check alignment, and torque down all the bolts. Boom! You just shaved +1.5" off your bumper.

You should be able to push it a bit fruther... I woudl leave the 4 front bolts loose and push on both sides with some impact..

 

[jlayne]

I see. Interesting. Time to invest in a rubber mallet.

 

[Sepp]

Sealed up the rear section of the passenger side floor.
POR15, and then a coat of enamel over that should last another 30 years..
The back seat section has been done as well.

There is a bit of rust where the drivers side "B" pillar meets the floor pan.
It's a complex section of the car, (as the floor meets the rear seat meets the rear fender meets the door sill meets the rocker panel.

I cut out the rot, and may need to cut more, to gain access to make sure all of the rust is gone.

Over the years, water and dirt had built up i(n the section where bottom side of where the drivers side rear fender attaches to the rocker section) had worked it's way into and below the seam sealer applied at the factory.
So, when I peeled up the seam sealer, rust was hiding....

 

[Sepp]

I cant get much done during the week, so I try to make the best of the weekends...

Progress is very slow....
I laid down a coat of enamel on the front passenger side foot well.
The gas in the tank was 5 years old, so out it went...and into the F150. It'll run on anything.

I scored a perfect set of door pockets, and a NLA windshield gasket!

And due to a hand injury, I spent a few hours sorting through the boxes of parts. I remember where most of them go.

 

[Sepp]

The rust on/around the B pillar is a bit of a Pandoras Box..
All of that was hiding underneath the carpet.
Luckily, it can be all fixed and sealed...and hide under the carpet again!
The car has had a few misplaced jack incidents, and the seam of where the fender/rocker meet the floor was split allowing water/salt to get in the seam, rusting it out from the outside, in.

Found a small spec of rot just forward of the B pillar...due to likely the same culprit.
Just like the B pillar issue, I will need to cut out the section from the outside of the car to ensure I get all of the rust.

The final sections of sound deadener was chipped off the transmission tunnel. I cleaned it up, and it now has new paint, as well as most of the rear drivers side footwell.

Found out last night as I was looking through boxes of parts, that I'm missing a C pillar trim piece.
It makes me nervous, as now I'm wondering how many other parts are missing...time will tell!

 

[Sepp]

Getting the car prepped for a visit from a mobile automobile welding business.
Removed the front fenders so the A pillar sections below the hood line can be welded.

There was a little bit of rust in the cover section under the front passenger side fender.
The rust has been removed and will be welded back into place. (It's currently flipped up just above the tire)

And also repair a badly repaired (in the past) upper fender mount)

Even though both A pillar sections below the hood line had rust holes, only the drivers side had some additional rust holes in the area just behind that.
So, it's been cut out, and will get cleaned up and repaired.

While I was getting rid of the last pieces of carpet padding up under the footwell in the dashboard area, I noticed some hydraulic fluid on the actuator arm boot of the clutch master cylinder....on a positive note, it's a great time to change it out as everything is out of the way!!

Most of the floorpan and the transmission tunnel are nice and shiny black!! Can't paint anymore until some holes are patched.

I cut out a section of where the drivers side rear fender meets the rocker panel, meets the floor pan. The piece is upside down in the shot, but one can see the lip on the left is badly damaged by unfortunate jacking. The lip split away from the matched lip on the floor pan. The seam became vulnerable to water, snow, salt, etc and rusted from the inside the seam, up into the fender, rocker panel and the floor pan. All of this went on for decades unnoticed underneath carpet and paint.

With that piece cut out, I was able to see the horrific state of the rusty area from the backside. On the left of the photo is what's left of where the B pillar meets the floor pan and frame rail. lower right is the battery box.
One can see where the rust had crept upwards from the floor pan lip.
As bad as that looks, that is the worst spot on the car. And fixable. And will be out of site once completed.

 

[[email protected]]

I try to keep winter grime, etc., cleaned off of our cars, especially the underside, but I have to admit that I'm always afraid of pulling something back and finding that level of rust hiding somewhere. Glad you found it, and can get it all cleaned up and repaired, but it doesn't look fun.

 

[Sepp]

Man, sometimes I think if I didn't love this car so much....It would be easier to dump my money and time into my other cars.
But, the Quattro is my all time favorite car, and it feels great to keep this one on the road.

 

[Sepp]

Between the car being parked outside, it being wintertime with lots of rain and a busy schedule...the progress is glacial.

But, I was able to remove all of the rubberized coating in the drivers side wheel well to ensure that there was no rust hiding anywhere.
It was nice an clean underneath.
A shot of self etching primer and it's good to go for a little while.

I did the same for the inside area of the front fenders.

The welder is lined up to come next week and get the holes filled in!!

 

[Ermegerd]

Nice work! Sub'd!

 

[Sepp]

Thanks!!!
Welding will commence tomorrow!!!!!!!

:thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup::thumbup:

 

[Sepp]

Finally, what I consider forward progress!

Mobile welders on site, nice and early!!!

Both A pillar holes patched!!!!

And primed!!

Both front wheel wells and the elephant ears have all of the original coating removed..everything welded and sealed and primed!!!

The small holes on the floor are done.

And I dismounted the Ronals so I can give them an overhaul. The OE sized NLA tires are nearly perfect.

And the post man delivered some great motivational reading material.