Early last wk I pulled the LH ECU from the passenger footwell. I contacted a friend in our club who has an 87 S4 and asked if he was done repairing it (he was doing some of the same fuel lines I've done). He said it was still apart and new parts weren't scheduled to arrive for 2 wks. So much for trying my ECU in his car.
On Wed I packed it up and stood in line at the Post Office to send to a guy in AZ for analysis and rebuild if broken. His website said to send it to his PO Box if you used USPS, so I did. It was scheduled to arrive Sat. Sent Louie an email stating I'd sent him my ECU and arrival date. Checked the tracking # Sat morning and it had arrived on Fri, so I sent him an email saying it had arrived. Got a response back from him saying he had closed his PO Box on Wed, but the Post Office would forward it to his mailing addr. OK, but it wouldn't be until Mon before he got it. He emailed me late Mon and said he'd received my ECU. He said my ECU had the original board that always fails, however, his diagnostic tool was broken so he couldn't verify if my ECU was good or not. I had to decide whether to chance him fixing a good ECU and wasting $495 or having him send it back and have someone else test it and fix if broken. I don't need to throw $500 out the window, but figured it makes my car worth that much more if it's repaired, knowing it won't fail in the future. I let him know this morning to go ahead and put the new board in. He just emailed me and said the ECU was done, it was in the mail, and should arrive on Thu. Fingers crossed it solves my starting issues. Based on what the shark doesn't do at ignition, the symptoms point to the LH ECU.
While the ECU was off being worked on, I did some more work on the seats. I found there's a crank tool in the tool kit that's used to crank on the seats to move them fwd & back. Currently my seats won't go fwd enough with the power button to get to the rear bolts. I cranked on the driver's seat with the crank and got it fwd enough to get to the bolts. Got them out and the seat came out. Success! It was dirty under the seat, so I had full access to get the droppings and dirt removed and gave the carpet and floor a nice shampooing. I also shot some penetrating oil on the seat's threaded bars that are used to move the seat back and forth. They had a bunch of crud on them. Then hit them with a wire brush.
Feeling good about the driver's seat, I moved to the passenger seat. I had the seat as far fwd with the crank that I thought I could go but it still wasn't far enough fwd (there are 4! bolts holding the seat in the rear). I could get to 2 of the 4 bolts. So my plan was to spray the threaded bars with penetrating oil and then run the seat back and forth a bit with the switch. It wouldn't move with the switch, so I was going to run it back a ways with the crank. Part way into my motion I hear a crack and two of the plastic teeth on the gear go flying into the footwell. Great. Why did I think things would continue to go well? Thinking I'm really screwed, I went back to the Internet for more knowledge. Supposedly I can take the cable out that drives the seat and stick a vise grips on it and manually turn it. We'll see. I haven't gotten back to it to see if that's true. My seat adventures were Sat & Sun.
Yesterday I removed the steering wheel. The stitching has let go. Took it to my upholstery place. Was hoping he could stitch it back together or replace it with new leather. Unfortunately, the color appears to be like my Granite Green exterior - the dark parts of the interior can look gray, green, or brown depending on the light (the seats and carpet are a bone color). Got a call from the upholstery guy this morning and he can't restitch it because the leather has shrunk and he doesn't have leather hydes hanging around, so I retrieved it up today. He would be able to stitch it up if I bring a new leather kit for it, so I started searching the Internet this afternoon. It may be hard to find a match for my color, but I have a few leads. The search continues...
I still need to measure the thrust bearing play. I've been reading up on how to do it, but haven't mustered the courage to do it yet. Maybe tomorrow or Thu.
On a positive note, I found $2.99 under the driver's seat. I parlayed $2 of that into a PowerBall ticket but none of the #s hit.
Here's some pics of my steering wheel. They don't really accurately depict the true color.
