The wife has been wanting a convertible for years and the fact that early TTs can be had for cheap due to the cost of dealer provided TB changes and the fact the suspension other bits tend to be worn, practically totals a car if you pay a dealer for it. That combined with a lot of the dealer specific VW tools I have purchased through the years for our Jetta TDI could be used on the TT. I found a nice TT (clean car fax report), in Chicago area. The top had fallen apart while it was still in a FL dealership (FL car its whole life), so this guy in Chicago (used car dealer that seems to like Audis), purchased it put a new top on it. The kicker that sealed the deal for Jess was the fact that he had the entire interior re-done from baseball glove leather to dark shade of RED. So it is black with a red interior (only TT of it's kind since it is custom job). Looked over the car it is 225hp 1.8t Quattro, with all its flaws (there were a lot) I got the car for just over 8k out the door with plates. It had 104k on the odo, original Timing Belt (ticking time bomb).
We drove it home, that went fine. Got home and saw the oil dripping, car had no protective belly pan but I knew this from previous visual, but I knew for a fact it wasn't leaking oil. Long story short, the pan had cracked on the way home. This was due to the fact it had lowering springs installed, no belly pan, and factory shocks. It was also winter so plenty of random debris on the road. Good news is it was a slow leak and it still had plenty of oil so no internal damage done.
Over the next few days I started assessing situation, got the car up on jack stands, rolled underneath of it inspected everything. FL car really showed, no rust etc, just some every day typical road grime. I did notice however that the front CV boots, were completely torn (360 degree tear). So I added CVs to the list, it was at this time I discovered the H&R lowering springs that were on the otherwise stock suspension. I was iffy about doing the shock/struts and all bushings right away, but the fact I had to take the axles out meant I might as well take care of the full suspension at once especially since the lowering springs would have killed the stock suspension much quicker. So Eibach Springs and Koni FSD kit on the way!
Back to the engine, stock Timing Belt with all associated items needed to be replaced, started looking at the car closely and found a spider web of vacuum hoses…most of which intersected over the valve cover…where they were all brittle and cracked. After researching it a bit, I discovered I could simplify the car greatly but removing the fuel Evap system, N249 (secondary boost controller only for emissions), SAI (secondary air pump), and combi valve (similar to an EGR vavle). All had to do was order some resistors, fashion up a catch can of some sort, and re-plumb everything with new hoses. I then found out that the wiring harness to my coil packs was brittle with some exposed wires. Ok new wiring harness as well...
So first thing I decided to tackle, removed oil/oil pan since it was dripping. Then I started in on Timing Belt, I had to remove the accessory belt pulley to get to the TB. Well four Allen bolts all that needed to do that, 3 of the 4 stripped. It took almost a full week of drilling/grinding to get that pulley off. Once that was done, supported engine to remove motor mounts, did the water pump, TB tensioner/roller. Put it all back together, double checked time seemed to line up. Good to go.
At this point, I should have STOPPED. Started car, make sure timing was right, then proceed with the rest of the build. I did not, at this point I decided to tear into the emission equip/vac line situation and replace the coil pack wiring harness. The reason I did this is not yet received my oil pan yet, so I could not start the car without the oil pan, but had several days of valuable time (so I thought) to work on the car. This crucial decision proved to be something I will regret for years to come and hope to never repeat a similar disregard for on general best practices.
This is a shot of the majority (not all) of the emissions equipment removed. Cleaned an reinstalled of course ;-).
During the completion of the emission delete I found various flanges that were broken or cracked so each time I had to order and wait several days. During this time I started tackling the suspension. During which I discovered the front wheel bearings were started to go, (NAPA is not cheap when it comes to having them press in wheel bearings), but the other the front suspension will pretty uneventful, rear with the Quattro was more a challenge and I really struggled getting the control arms in on one side….it was the first side, so I assumed the wisdom from doing one side made the second side easier (this proved incorrect as when I tried to get it aligned I discovered one of the rear CAs is bent, so I have to fix that someday). So after about one full weekend, I had all the suspension head to toe replaced, Full tie-rods front CVs/wheel hubs, all bushings all around the car (there are a lot), done.
So after completing the vac lines and getting the coil pack installed, I got my oil pan on, oil in etc. Time to finally start the car, this was around mid-late march and I started this in beginning of February, so about 6-7 weeks in. Ready to be done, all I needed to do was start car clean up a few things in engine bay and go for a test ride.
Car would not start, turn over but not start. First thing I did was check for spark, no spark. Hmm…after about a full week of staring at wiring diagrams I realized that the two power leads in the coil pack harness were not supposed to be wired separation (two powering, two cyl and two powering the other two), but were in fact supposed to be wired together the two sending power to all 4. I did this, and walla, I had spark. This was after trying to replace an ECU relay that did nothing.
Put plugs back in, no start. Stumped I gave up for a while, finally I got my Vag-Com out only to find I could talk to the ECU. Blown ECU fuse, must had done it at some point in the re-wiring process. Replaced and I could talk to the ECU….but that is it. No start….
After some kicking around different things, I decided to start checking continuity on things and the cam position sensor being high on the list I pulled the plug while Jessica cranked the motor, and to my big surprise…car started!
So now I was in a place where the car would run, with what appear to be just fine, without the sensor plugged in but would refuse to start with the sensor plugged in.
At this point I started looking at everything, I spent a week chasing phantom ground problems (the car has really good ground now). Another week checking continuity on ECU pins with different sensors. Finally I started to come to the conclusion, my timing must be off. Even though I had checked TDC and my timing marks via several methods. So proceeded to attempt to move the belt a tooth. This proved quite challenging as the tensioner is pull pin hydraulic type, once the pin is pulled there is no way to remove tension from the belt. So at least once I got the timing well off a few teeth…
During this time, I had a situation where my ECU randomly flaked out but then went back to normal, I started to thinking that maybe when I blew that fuse I blew out an ECU…new ECU from forums that had all the immobilizer stuff removed. Same result.
At this point my dad came down for a second set of eyes and he noticed that when it was running, it was missing. After checking compression cyl 4 was showing 0 compression, some looking through the intake runners quickly proved one of the intake vavles was ever so slightly bent….I did check compression when I got the car and it was spot on. So this was something I did when messing with the timing.
After accessing the cost to purchase valve guides etc, I found a used head for 300 bucks in the Chicago area. Got a new head, now time to get the head off, head bolts no problem, 3 bolts for the turbo….weird male torx nut (like a castle nut), went to F/F got socket for it. PB blasted it, waited a while….wouldn't budge 3ft breaker bar on them, eventually rounded the nuts. So time to drill those out, 16 hours over two days and bolts were out (stainless steel cutting bits for dremel work nicely but dull quickly).
Offending Torx nut:
There's that Turbo!
Time to put new head on! After several weeks are trying to find a the right head bolts (ordered the wrong set online, and then NAPAs part DB had wrong part number) 3rd set of head bolts. I got head on, only to find out the turbo gasket also from NAPA was the wrong one (old one was mangled by drilling). Ordered correct turbo gasket and waited….
Took the time to replace the timing belt again (involving lifting the engine removing motor mount), cause I somewhat ruined the new timing belt, this of course meant new tensioner this time I went with a manual tensioner setup, so if I needed to I could release the tension and remove/install the TB again it just has to be tensioned every oil change or so.
Got gasket and head was on! Got car mostly back together, put everything back on, thinking it was going to start right up…..turned the key and no start. Unplug cam sensor, and car starts. Right back to where I started after several weeks and to many parts to count
Well at this point a friend stopped by and started asking about that coil pack harness I replaced. I immediately began to say no, I have been over that coil pack harness 100x's and it is 100%. He moved on to something else (crank position sensor), can't remember now, and then he brought up the coil pack harness again. Well he is here and I have already checked continuity back to ECU for almost every sensor, so just to prove to him I did do the coil pack harness correctly I decided to check continuity back to ECU.
Grabbed a coil pack and checked the wire going to the ECU to the pin associated it with on the ECU. No continuity….odd. I must have the pin wrong, check spreadsheet for ECU pin out, no that is right the pin. Hmm, ok let's start checking the other pins, whoops Cyl 4 was wired to Cyl 1 on the ECU. I had wired coilpacks from Cyl 1,2,3,4 to 4,3,2,1….and that is why the car wouldn't run with cam position sensor plugged. Prior to that revelation I would have argued that cyl # 4 was actually # 1 as far as wiring went, why I don't know, I just had that idea in my head.
Wired coilpack harness AGAIN, this time correctly, bam engine started and purred perfectly….new head, second new TB, etc. all because of that coilpack harness issue and my apparent dyslexia.
Engine all buttoned up! (Yes, I painted the valve covers.) 
So now I have a 2001 TT with new front axles and wheel hubs, new suspension and bushing all around, new ECU, head with 30k less than ODO on it, and a bunch of other new parts. I still need to replace the bent rear CA, replace the instrument cluster(one that came with car gas gauge is broke), and fix a boost leak (it is maxing out around 11psi and it should be building 14), and find a new passenger door trim as the existing one got caught recently when the window was put up.
However all that stuff will wait till winter, as the wife has pretty much become attached to it at this point as she sees none of the car's current flaws…
More pics are here: