1983 Audi quattro-Stripping down and cleaning

Continuing on with the shell stripping and clean-up…

Still a couple harnesses, rack, etc. to be removed before things can really get cleaned up:

Pulled everything but the fuel lines and the brake line to the rear. I went underneath and pulled all of the heatshields so the bottom could be more thoroughly cleaned up:

There is some damping rubber to be removed to allow the fuse box flange to be installed:

It was rock hard and not coming off 40F, so a little heat was applied and it peeled off without much trouble:

Much like the stuff removed from the driver’s footwell, some tar residue remained and goes away quickly with some paint thinner and a scotch brite pad:

There you can also see why the patch is required, as the ‘flat’ on the early chassis cars is not large enough for the fuse box flange perimeter seal. Sure, you can do this other ways…this is just my way of doing it. I’m nearly ready to make the cuts and bond the new panel in.

This is about as clean as this thing is going to get inside:

So I pulled the chassis dollies out from under the 4K:

And rolled the chassis outside for the cleaning. It is nice that I can easily move this around by myself.

So I have a few hours of scrubbing done, but the wheel wells and underneath still needs quite a bit of elbow grease to get some of the dirt/grease off. Some of it has probably been there for 25+ years.

And the side with the worst of the body damage:

Along with getting the shell cleaned up and ready to start accepting parts, I continued my suspension build…honey badger style, of course…

So we were last left with three functional Koni yellows (2x 86-2086, 1x 8610-1262)…I removed the chipping paint and am getting the ready for repainting:

The most cost-effective solution was to order a replacement for the blown strut (8610-1262). So, naturally, that’s what I did:

I also got some more sleeves for the coilovers:

I removed the stock spring perches and then powerwashed the uprights and the subframes/control arms:

So now, I’ve got to start cleaning up all of the dirty parts I’ve removed and plan on re-using. I’m waiting on some bushings and things, but can do a lot more prep work in the meantime. It’s still a bit too cold to be painting here, so I’ll try and push that as late as possible.

I’ve got to start figuring out what collections of axles are going to make everything work happily together. And also the shift linkage. Wiring harnesses are going to get sorted through sometime this week.