“If they were that good the manufacturers would fit them”
The 80 year old secret the motor industry would really rather you didn’t know
In 1940s America, it was discovered the little tin-alloy pellets, used in the Hurricane fighters on the Russian front, would stop carbon deposits from forming in engines. For the motor manufacturers this wasn’t good news. No carbon deposits meant greatly reduced engine wear, putting a big dent in the profits from component failure, repairs, replacement parts & ultimately new car sales. But for the fuel additive companies with their expensive repeat-use cleaners, the little pellets spelt complete disaster, because permanently clean engines wouldn’t need them.
This well-known phrase was one of several started to ensure the little pellets were ignored. It’s still happening. For years, a powerful industry ensured the public were mis-lead about what fuel catalysts could actually do. So today, millions of cars, vans & lorries needlessly produce increasing amounts of CO, NOx & CO2 emissions, simply because engine deposits gradually ruin efficiency & clog-up exhaust systems. The VW scandal was a prime example, of a cunning attempt to hide the inefficiency & raised emissions that deposits always cause.
Engine deposits are the real cause of the excess traffic pollution which blights air quality in towns & cities worldwide. It’s carbon deposits that cause the cars, vans & 4x4s we see every day, to pump out those thick clouds of filthy black smoke, as they pull away. Yet where fuel catalysts are used, engines will remain permanently clean & efficient, which means that performance, fuel economy & emissions stay close to those of a brand-new engine.
Fuel catalysts permanently & safely remove even the toughest, baked-on carbon deposits, helping engines regain their original fuel economy, performance & emissions. So potential MOT failures can be returned to ‘as new’ emissions spec and smoky, noisy old 4x4s, vans & cars can be clean, quiet & smooth again. DPF warning lights can stay switched off, EGR valves don’t play up & AdBlue usage can be massively reduced. Simply removing & preventing carbon deposits saves drivers a small fortune.
The 20,000,000 plastic bottles of repeat-use fuel system cleaner, sold in the UK each year, can’t solve the underlying problem. With fuel catalysts, our excess traffic pollution would permanently disappear, but so would the sales of millions of plastic bottles of chemicals. One rather big reason the public are still being intentionally mis-lead, about what fuel catalysts actually do.
1982 AUDI 80 CL
OWNED SINCE September 2019 MILEAGE SINCE LAST REPORT 620 TOTAL MILEAGE 128,210 LATEST COSTS Nil
As the world slowly returns to something resembling normality, so my Audi is slowly being fettled into something that I really, really like. Don’t get me wrong – this spiffing 1982 80CL is a very nice car, but I’m the sort of bloke who knows what he likes and I really want this car to be just like the one I had back in the early 1990s, so it does feel like a bit of a blank canvas for me to work on.
Now it’s running nicely, I’ve been using it regularly for local trips for pleasure, making the most of some very nice weather and reasonably quiet roads. But the fettling needed to continue – and the first job on the list was to fit a replacement instrument panel. The original was fine, but being out of a base-model CL, it does without a rev counter, which simply won’t do in a premiumbadged classic like this.
Luckily, it was sold with a period-correct spare in the boot – presumably taken from an early Audi Coupé or 80 CD given that there was a vacuum indicator labelled ‘Econ’ instead of the coolant gauge you get in later cars. That’s good, because it was the same set-up as mine. Back in the day when I had an 80 CL, I swapped the instrument panel over and found it to be an effortless plug-and-play job. What shocked me this time around is that I’d remembered how to do it after all these years without looking it up… must be muscle memory.
Basically, it’s held in place by four hidden screws, so you pull out the switchgear that flanks the gauges, then it’s a case of simply and gently removing all of the connectors. Then, as they say in the manual, re-fitting is the reversal of removal. Except that when I fitted the new unit, and plugged it in, neither the rev counter nor the clock was working. Blast. So, off it all came, and I consulted with my younger son, who is a genius with all things electrical.
He had a look at it and immediately cleaned up the instrument pack, finding a couple of dry joints that needed re-soldering. Once that was sorted, we re-fitted it, and everything lit up as it should. Nice. Of course, the mileage has changed, so I have kept a full record of when the swap was made for future reference. Repairing the non-working stereo and heater blower was more down to my son than me, too. We elected to strip out the 1990s CD unit that was hidden in the glovebox, then transferred all of that wiring back to the original Sharp radio/cassette player, which looked like it hadn’t seen action in years. It worked a treat once it had been cleaned and tweaked and now I’m back playing all of the mix tapes that I used to listen to in my original Audi 80 nearly three decades ago.
The heater blower had packed up through lack of use – or it certainly looked that way. We removed the switch and cleaned it up with fine grade sandpaper and contact cleaner, and once re-connected, the fan motor clicked into life. Not all three speeds worked initially, but with some rapid on/offs they all started to work. My prognosis is that the switch rusted up and the fan seized through lack of use. Anyway, it’s all good now, and safe to use during the winter months.
Finally, I turned my attention to the wonky bootlid, which I assume hadn’t been re-fitted properly since having been re-sprayed some time back. Another simple job that’s rewarding in its results – it was a case of slightly slackening off the four bolts holding the bootlid to the swan’s neck hinge and adjusting to fit. Five minutes and all the satisfaction. Makes you wonder why people don’t just get this stuff right first time.
I must admit that I’ve been racking up the miles in the Audi for no other reason than pleasure driving. But
the thing is, it’s such a nice thing to spend time in, I keep going back to it. The problem is that the longer I own a classic, the more faults I find, and the more I want to put them right. And right now, this one is annoying me for its paint flaws – it’s seen plenty of action from the spray gun over the years, and none of it matches quite as well as it might.
The question now is, do I spend more money making it look perfect, or do I just enjoy it for what it is – a sweet-looking, nice driving, nostalgia machine for me? I’d love to hear what you think.