1984 Audi Turbo Quattro Coupe

If there is, this may be the one. We just purchased this absolutely original 1984 Audi Turbo Quattro Coupe, aka the UR Quattro. I’m not going to get into the crazy details but this is a very rare car, hand assembled in a back room at the Audi facility. The letters UR are some odd reference to the German word for “primordial” or “original” as this car is the first generation Quattro which so many legends are based.

We have some work to make this car rock solid so you can buy it and chuck it over a rise on a gravel road or blast through the trees at the Maine Forest Rally. The next car we need is an E30 BMW M3. Then a Lancia Delta Integrale, followed by a RS200 Ford, my all time favorite car of all time of all the legends Iconic series

MGA 1600 Barn Find

What do you think this car is worth? Even though the inside of all the sheet metal has a light coating of surface rust, the car is amazingly solid without any evidence rust bubbles in the rocker panels or bottom of the doors.  The car is complete with all the brightwork and trim and as you can see, the side curtain’s are still in tact. The seats are nice leather things that probably came from a Volvo, absolutely not original.

The engine turns over freely with the starter and it sounds like it has even compression in all cylinders. It has all the original mechanical components like the Lucas Starter, Generator and distributor. Based on how well all of the panels fit and the condition of the sheet metal, it doesn’t appear to have ever been in an accident. The odometer shows 15K miles, is that possible?

I’m thinking of putting it on ebay but need to get a feel for the value before I go through that exercise. I’d really appreciate anyone’s feedback on where to go with this MGA.

I’m getting frustrated with all the photos in my IPHOTO window, every single image is washed out and nasty so its high time to replace the trusty D10, also known as “the childs toy”.  The D10 is great for a shop like ours (or a child toy box) because it can handle a nasty shock from being banged or dropped and it’s waterproof. I had so much fun to taking photos and videos of people underwater with their hair floating around in the artsy looking natural sepia tone of the river water. The D10 is a great camera and it won’t be tossed, it’ll just be downgraded for non glamorous work on dirty projects.

It smokes when the flash goes off, there are paint drips on the body and the lens has some welding spatter baked in, she-is-the Power Shot! No retractable lens to get jammed up with metal shavings, rugged body, she’s a good ‘ol girl.

For more glamorous shots I will use my new CANON G10! It isn’t a child’s toy. It is just what I was looking for, not a highbrow SLR but a super high tech point and shoot. It takes good video and amazing photographs, I’m really happy with it.

I don’t have many name brand loyalties, I think the Supermarket brand Oreo’s are better than Nabisco OREO’s and think pencils with my name on them are better than Dixon Ticonderoga but I must have Canon cameras.

Green Iron bridge 1908

Bridge in VT 1908

Canon D10 Powershot

It’s hard to tell how deep the crease is in the photos but the door skin actually split at the rear edge and crushed the framework at the closure area. The crease went on the panel behind the door as well so Nate took the door apart and pulled the fuel tank to access the inside of the rear panel. I had to make a few custom tools to get inside the door to shrink the sharp crease and other dents without having to remove the entire skin. It would have been a bear to remove and replace the skin because the door fits so well from the factory and to duplicate that is tons of work. A complete replacement door would have been equally intensive so my gut reaction is to fix what you’ve got

The paint match is excellent, the car is the newer tint of blue sera metallic, a slightly lighter shade than I have seen on older cars like Dino’s and 330′s. I like the older shade more because the paint contains more gray where the shade on this car has more         violet in the tint. Either way, I am happy with the results, the car is fully polished and looks killer

GTSI Door repair

Quattrovalvole 308 GTS

Want to seal an Italian car? Treat it like a German car.

Rob is a frequent visitor to the blog and asked a great question on what we use to seal up Ferrari engines.  As far as I’m concerned there aren’t any mysteries to assembling a Ferrari engine, the tolerances like piston clearance, valve lash and cam timing are very similar to other engines. Like all engines, cleanliness is close to holiness when putting them together, something we have seen countless times is an engine that is assembled without cleaning the crankshaft passages or bead blast abrasive that hasn’t been cleaned out thoroughly.

The real magic in assembling these cast aluminum engines is sealing them up to prevent leaks. We have come up with some great techniques mixed with praiseworthy products to make these engines tight. One technique is to have the early engines modified to use a lip seal instead of the “slinger” at the back of the crankshaft and another is to assemble the engine and let it sit on the bell housing overnight with red ATF or Marvel oil to check for leaks at the rear rope seal area the next morning.

Rob asked what we use for sealers and commented that he purchased “Hylomar” from his Harley Davidson dealer. Hylomar is made under license of Rolls Royce and is a waxy material that can fill voids and remain flexible. I’ve never been overly impressed with this product but it’s probably because I think Rolls Royce’s cars are a total joke and anything affiliated with them must suck.

We use a product from ELRING called Dirko (http://www.elring.de/index_en.php), lame name, amazing product. Like Hylomar, stays pliable to maintain a seal as castings move as they heat and cool but unlike Hylomar, it’s more of a silicone RTV that can fill large gaps easily which is necessary at the timing chain cover area. Hylomar is great in allowing you to reuse gaskets and the Dirko isn’t so sticky that it tears gasket paper but we never reuse gaskets anyhow. I guess if you were stranded it may be necessary to reuse.

Typically, you don’t need to coat the surfaces of the gaskets with a sealer, just hit the corners. On 308′s and 512′s they have a bunch of blunt ends of the gaskets at the cam covers that need a good smear of sealer similar but the main runs of paper are fine to leave without extra sealer. But, since we run a shop and hate to do things twice or have someone unhappy with a leak who is 8 hours away, we put a light smear on the entire gasket to be safe.

A friend of mine is looking to sell this BMW Isetta to free up some space for other cars. This is one of the best Isettas I have ever  seen because he had all the details done properly right. If you are looking for an Isetta let me know and I can connect you with the owner.

BMW Isetta for sale

We seem to have an influx of 250 engines all of a sudden, the one Nate is working on just completed its first test run on the bench after overhaul and the other is coming apart because of problems with the cylinder heads. On this engine, the valve guides are loose in the heads allowing oil to pour into the exhaust system that made smoke pour out of the exhaust system once it heated up.

Bill took some video of the other engine running on the test stand so keep an eye out for that clip on youtube soon.

Ferrari 250 engines

We think this may have been a fire patrol van for a German or Swiss parks department and I’d like to hear if anyone has any thoughts on what else it may have been used for. Every detail is so incredibly well crafted from the incredibly precise roll up rear door to the beautiful speedometer/clock combination gauge that looks like it was made by Patek Phillipe! With this craftsmanship comes a super heavy curb weight that is propelled by a minuscule 2.4 liter 4 cylinder diesel engine that barley gets this tank to 50 mph! If you really need to get to that raging forest fire this may not be the first vehicle you choose which may explain the low miles and lack of wear and tear.

Diesel Mercedes Benz

Couple of 748′s in yellow

Service Ducati