PJM99

once the car warms up it's fine though

wurldpeace

i like shifts that are smooth & found this to be best.

when stopping... stop>neutral>3rd>1st>go

when reversing... stop>neutral>4th>reverse

with maybe a clutch pump and shifter jiggle in between.

a linkage that is clean,lubed and w/good bushings makes a big difference.

i trust the audi trans fluid since theres certain chemicals in the 'others' that dont jive well w/certain metals in the trans.

although i did like the lucas trans treatment(in addition to audi trans fluid) in my 5k and will prob do the same when i flush the 4k.

easiest 'for now' fix might be some lithium... the grease, not the album or drug.

hope it helps

snickers

To get a better first gear, jack the car up and crawl under it to access the shifter rod where it connects to the shifter (right by the tail shaft).Put the shifter in neutral, then loosen the clamp bolt so that it is free to rotate, then put the shift lever in the neutral position after moving it right to left, and retighten the clamp bolt...it should be much easier to find first. It may take another person to help you hold the shifter, however it can be done fairly easily by yourself.Also replace the trans fluid with Valvoline 75-90w synthetic (recomended by the local Audi dealer here in Colorado). I did this with mine after my wife complained of the same problem and now 1st is easy to find and the wife is happy again. There is a drain and fill on the tail shaft too and the fill plug is very close to the tunnel so I cut the carpet with a razor knife and cut an opening in the tunnel large enough to access the other sending units on the tail shaft as well (just in case they ever need replacing I won't have to drop the trans). Then make a cover and attach it with 4 screws and velcro the carpet back after refilling the tail shaft with fluid (much easier now). Be careful of the wires for the sending units, when cutting the tunnel, and also look at where you want the cuts in the carpet to be BEFORE cutting. If you use a new blade on the utility knife you won't see the cuts unless you look extremely close. The other option is to take it to a dealer and pay for the fluid change.

onebrokenneck

My current '85 4kq does the exact same thing from time to time. I have found that shifting it into neutral and pumping the clutch one or two times will help. I do have to shift into 2nd gear and then into 1st sometimes. I have drained and refilled the trannie and differential fluids recently (after a nightmare flooding incident) and it made no difference. My last '85 4kq (sold to the lithuanian mafia) always ground gears going into reverse. The former owner had broken the shift linkage and ended up welding it back together in a way that would make it have a shorter throw. It would also have the 1st gear problem occaisionally.


onebrokenneck
1985 4000S Quattro

Whitjr

Do you think they used it for international covert ops... or simple wack jobs?

CGTBrad

Yep, I've got it in my car too and find it to be superior

4kq in BTV

Use a small handpump (available at Autozone or the like) to pump it from underneath the car. Obviously you'd want the car on appropriate jackstands to do this. I used redline synthetic MT-90 and shifting has improved, but I have the same problem that Matt Suffern describes, when I stop and go into neutral, getting into first sucks. Try "clearing" the transmission by going into 3rd, then 2nd, then first. This will make your passenger think you are nuts (it worked on my gf!)

Best of luck.

onebrokenneck

When I changed the fluids on mine, I found a pump at Shucks that screwed right onto the bottle of tranny fluid. I think it was $3 or $4. Small price to pay to elimate any need to cut up your floor. Besides, its someplace that will leak when you are trying to drive through deep water.


onebrokenneck
1985 4000S Quattro

onebrokenneck

Ok, so this is a long story... I bought my first 1985 Charcoal Grey 4000S Quattro to use as a daily driver since my 1981 VW Jetta would brake down at least once a week. I am perpetually on the verge of being late so the extra 10-15 minutes trying to troubleshoot why my car wouldn't start that on any given day was making me late to work. So my old roommate had the car for years and he had put it through some of the worst rally abuse you could imagine. He would take me out in the car out and rally it until we shredded a tire or something broke. It had also been t-boned pretty bad and had a red bulls-eye painted over the large dents. Needless to say, the car was a beauty. I bought it for $400 and some bicycle parts. It got me to work and started every day without hesitation for about 9 months. On my way home one day, the head gasket blew and the car had pretty much no value to me anymore. With its condition, I didn't want to dump a bunch of money into it so I moved it up to my girlfriends parents driveway for an extended stay. I started car hunting and found a 1985 Audi 4000 listed in the paper. My gf drove me up north to take a look at the car and it was another Charcoal Grey 4000S Quattro with exactly the same interior and options. It even had a nicer stereo and the orignal factory one. This one had 126K and had been garaged and babied it's whole life. The second owner was moving to Arizona and didn't want to take the car with him. I talked him down to $1250 that I didn't have and proceeded to make credit card withdrawls off of three different accounts to come up with the money. So I proceeded to drive that car and ignored my other one until the constant complaing from my gf parents forced me to put it up for sale. I put an ad in the Buy and Sell and the first day it was out got a phone call from phone call from some guy with an Eastern Block accent around 6 pm. He wanted to see the car so I had him meet me that night. He came with two other friends in some kind of rice rocket... acura or honda or something. They didn't have enough money for the car and tried to do a partial trade from a large collection of car stereo decks, amplifiers, and speakers that were practiaclly overflowing out of the trunk of their car. I wouldn't accept any of them assuming they were stolen. They all emptied their wallets and came up with $388.00. They started up the car and revved the crap out of it for a while, didn't want to test drive it, and then signed the title after it died and would not restart. Eventually they got it started and drove off. Never to be seen from again. They said that their grandma was flying over from Lithuania and they needed a nice car to drive her around in. So anyways, I transferred the title but they didn't. A few months later, got a letter from a towing companies impound lot saying I needed to come pick up my car. I called them and said it had been sold to three guys and I was no longer the legal owner. They had been pulled over and they all had multiple warrants out for their arrest. As far as I know, they went to jail and the old beater quattro went up for auction. So if anyone bought a car of that description for a towing company in Cosmopolis, WA, you can say that it was once owned by the Lituanian Mafia.

(This story is in no way implying that people from Eastern Block countries are by default involed in illegal activites or that the purchasers were actually involved in any kind of mafia.)


onebrokenneck
1985 4000S Quattro

QuattroJay

mine has a hard time shifting into first but only when its warmed up , sometimes I have to hit 3 then 2 then 1 to slide it in, or just yell at it and it will slide right in. has gotten better since I installed the short shifter.