How I rebuilt my A2

[Sarge786]

How I rebuilt my A2

This is the story of My A2. In loving memory of my late Nephew 'Shoby' who sadly passed away at the tender age of 4. My brother had a A2 for him and he used to love it very often having to be taken for a drive in it, to get him to fall asleep, as he had some learning difficulties. The A2 become associated with him and we called it 'Shoby car'.

SO, When her indoors wanted a car, without a second thought, I decided an A2 was gonna be it!
As I couldn't afford to buy one on the road, and to make it 'extra' special, because of all the love that would go into it, I decided to look for one from a salvage dealer. I was careful not to buy one with any body damage on it as I know these are very hard to get repaired, as my brother had experienced a 3 month wait to get a knock fixed in the rear wing.
I saw this car and thought I could make a nice little run around from it as I really liked this car. The two main reasons being 'Shoby car' that it is an all aluminium, making it twice as unique to me. It was fire damaged inside with it starting under the dashboard causing it to melt down together with lot of other parts around the vacinity.

Anyway, I looked at it and went down to the dealers to ask the prices for the wiring loom. I was quoted £433 for the 'Main Loom' which runs along the sills and under dashboard, all other parts would come from used spares sources. After factering it into the costs, I thought I'd buy the car and get on with the job.

After paying for it, eagerly taking delivery, I made a thorough examination around it, listing what I needed and then went on my merry way down to the *********** with car details in hand, to order the Wiring loom. I was in for a massive shock! as it turns out the wiring loom I was quoted for was for one of the smaller ones under the bonnet and NOT the Main loom which I needed, this main loom would now cost a staggering £3200+ !!...WHAT?!
The *********** 'donkeys' had now caused me a massive problem!.I got home to collect my thoughts and see what my next step would be.
I called other dealers and they either told me they didn't sell the part or quoted me the same price!!

SO, I was left with car on driveway and no real way out, I had also paid and bought a set of seats, doors panels, and dashboard from a spares place costing me over £800 for these items.

SO, I decided I had no choice but to get on with the clean up and see how the search for a used petrol main loom goes. Mine being Petrol and sods law seeing to it that I would only have access to Diesel wiring mean't that I was in for a long wait. The search for the parts began.

Out of desperation, at one point I decided to go and extract a loom from a Diesel A2, which I did and then rewired my car back together only to realise that because of the mistakes in the Audi's diagrams I was unable to make the modifications to the petrol requirements, so after a long few months of waiting and searching I finally found a A2 petrol car that was totally mint!, it had a 'destruction order' according to a big car salvage /recycling centre in Pool Bournemouth, I pleaded with them to sell it to me as a whole but they said they can't due to this 'destruction order'.

This little car was apparently abandoned, and it was sitting in a corner all shy and immaculate. I couldn't believe that I was going to have to smash into this car as they had no key!, it seemed such a shame. So after breaking the drivers door window, I managed to open the driver door BUT the rest of the doors were deadlocked!.. bloody hell this was gonna be hard work getting the complete loom out of this car and the salvage yards employees were having a laugh (I swear they were taking bets, and I can tell you we wern't the favourites) thinking it wouldn't be possible to get it out with car being dead locked, raining as hard as I've ever remembered it raining, VERY strong cold winds, oily wet open grounds, which would cause us to slip into the goo several times, we were working in this weather, my friend Ricky & I had under 4 hours to get it all done before they closed on a Friday!.

Luckily the impossible comes quite naturally to me and we focused and dived straight in. Having worked so VERY hard without any breaks or even a chance for a drink, we, being totally exhausted, and with a 3.5 hour drive to get back home to come yet, managed to get what we needed, interior out, dash out, fittings out, then wiring extracted from it and from rest of car, roof lining out, carpets out and other bits we needed. Ofcourse having to take out anything that came in the way .... which was everything!. Anyway proved the betting sods wrong didn't we ..lol

After getting back & few days in bed suffering from exhaustion, I got back into my car and stripped the dashboard out ...yet again... in order to remove the 'diesel' wiring that I had fitted in previously.

SO, this time I rewired the complete inside of the car and also changed the door trims - rears needed modifications as mine has electric windows in rear and the new trims didnt have switches nor did the new loom have the wiring so this also had to be incorporated into the wiring loom. Fitted in complete roof lining carpets etc etc.

The 'Shoby car' is now ready and I'm SO very proud of it, including the standard of my work, and I will look forward to years of pleasure from it...I hope.

Anyway if your still awake you will be able to see the pics below.

I would like to thank Shoby for his precious time with us as he will always continue to be an inspiration to me.

I would also like to thank my friend Ricky, mycarsavw, Crasher for their assistance.



Thank You
SARGE

[Sarge786]

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