My list to complete the S4 is getting shorter, but as usual something comes up that creates an addition. More on that in a bit.
The horn didn't always work consistently. Drew rebuilt the horn cap and we traced a few wires just to confirm everything. Horn now works everytime you push the button.
I knew I had a vacuum leak somewhere as the head lights wouldn't stay down (after the car was shut off) for longer than 5 minutes. I used a stethoscope to identify the leak, or so I thought. At first I thought it was the vacuum canister itself. I had a new one (which was meant for my S1) so we installed it. Nope, that was not the problem. So Drew and I un-installed it and reinstalled the original. That meant the switch itself was the culprit (I knew it wasn't the chassis reservoir).
I had read the head light vacuum switch was repairable and it seemed simple enough. I had a beat-up spare in the box of parts that came with this car so Drew & I took it apart and methodically cleaned and straightened everything out to confirm a good seal. It actually an ingenious design but not the easiest to disassemble and keep the parts intact.
Once we confirmed that we could disassembled and reassemble the vacuum switch successfully and it worked, we took the original one out of the car, took it apart, repaired it and re-assembled it and installed. Twelve hours later it was still holding vacuum. Success! (Drew is starting up a headlight vacuum switch repair business, send him your non-functioning and leaking switches).
- Inside of Repaired headlight vacuum switch
I installed the chrome "beauty rings" on the steel wheels, painted and installed the front wire grille inside the cowl and then took out the musty, dirty soft top to clean and install.
Drew and I spent about an hour cleaning the soft top and were proud of the work we had done. When it came time to install the top, the front leading edge had a bunch of snaps that we had no idea how they attached. Completely stumped and after a couple of responses to another post I made about S4 soft tops it was determined that this top is clearly non-standard and completely unusable. Gotta wonder how it ended up this way?
- Soft top has wrong leading edge attachment
Off came the top. Luckily I have a brand new tonneau cover that needs to be fitted with the snap attachments. Will work on that next time.
Well, the S4 is virtually finished and ready for its first public appearance at LOG36 in a couple of weeks. Its been a great project and it turned out to be a really nice car.
Time for some driving!