Ronnie's S6 Avant - V8 Family car

[rc]

All has been good in Audi world, nothings gone wrong, just a maintenance update.

Had a lot of fun with this in the snow! Being the locked mechanical Quattro it was so predictable. I went out everywhere even in the blizzrds!















Once all that fun was out of the way it was MOT time again so got it in for a check over



With this puppy on full blast!



The front discs and pads were very low and a busy was knackered on the rear upper wishbone. I couldn't find anywhere that would just do the bushes so had to buy the whole wishbone, and low and behold... they're different on the V8 models to all other A6 and Passat Quattro. The joys of S6 ownership! TPS managed to get one in from Germany but it took 5 days!



It was due its service too so got a filter too and the 9 litres of oil needed!



Oil dumped... so much oil!



On to the rear arm



Had to remove the coilovers to get to the inner bolts



And off



Old vs new



And all back together



And a delivery for the front



2006 Mercedes ML500 350x32mm discs and Porsche Cayenne 17z pads, is forgotten how huge these bloodly things were! And heavy!!




Pads were almost down to the backplates and discs have taken a hammering. I can't fault them. I drive this thing like a 2 ton hot hatch every day and it stops on the button every time. Discs aren't horrendous, only £99 from m-tec for the pair. They've lasted about 15k of hard miles!








And all new!



And the other side the same





Flushed half a litre of brake fluid through but there wasn't any problems of what came out.



And then it was MOT time



The only thing I had forgot about was I take the side lights out as they look ****, looks loads better with just the projector beam..... but I'd forgot to put them back in lmao.

But flew through the emissions again with all the cats removed so green!



Good for another year

 

[rc]

It's been quite a while since an update, but that's because all has been well with the car

It's been serving as a great family car and commuter racking up a few miles, popped up to snetterton to watch a few races



And to Santa Pod too



As well as a few trips to hospital with broken bones



It's also the daily and one problem with working at a port is constant seagull ****







This bugger left foot prints!



So it gets washed very regularly and still looks good



Last week I had to get a pair of tyres for the front so I spoke to a good friend of mine Graeme at We fit any tyres and he sorted me out with another couple of Super Sports



I had started to notice a few drips of oil on the drive lately so had a look underneath and found the engine sump was seeping



But more so the rear output shaft oil seal on the transfer box was leaking



So called TPS and got a new oil seal and fluid for the transfer box and new sealer for the sump



Started at the front and dropped the sump



Cleaned everything up ready for the gasket sealer





Cleaned up all the bolts as they were covered in sealer




And on




Next I had to drop the exhaust to get to the prop







Prop off



Flange off and new seal fitted



And going back together with new bolts



Heat shields cleaned and refitted




Some thing I'd noticed before in the past is that my rear suspension bolts had been loose, I think the niloc nuts had worn so I got a new set



Lubed it all up



And fitted the new nuts



One of the camber adjusted bolts was seized solid so am going to have to look into sorting that.

With those on I could refit the exhaust



And one of my flexys was a bit dodgy and had ripped open when removing the exhaust so had to cut it out




And banged in a temporary piece




The decats have been on there since I've had the car and are pretty ghastly, so I've booked it in with a local company to have some nice stainless replacements in a couple of weeks.

I've still got a few things to do but all in all everything is going well

 

[Andy_Mk3]

Nice work mate.. that seagull **** is nasty lol. Good job you're on the ball keeping on top of these little jobs, it's those little things that can build up and make for one huge repair bill if left!

 

[rc]

As you saw in the previous update one of the exhaust flexys had fallen apart so I temporarily fixed it with a bit of pipe.

The whole decat area was a bit of a bodge, it was already done before I bought it, varied from 1.5inch to 2.5 inch, one corner actually went down to 1.25inch.









So instead of just getting the flexy replaced I took it to a local powerflow to have some replacement decats made up. 2.5 inch all the way through to match the rest of the system



Much better



I also had a remap put on the car by Palmer Performance at the same time, the engine management light had always been on because of the decats, so got that mapped out, and secondary air injection pump got rid of too as it was pointless now. He removed the speed limiter too the power was upped from 344bhp to 365bhp which is bloody impressive on a normally asperated car, the the torque went up from 320lbft to 340lbft.

It has transformed the car! The throttle response it the biggest difference, is so responsive it's unbelievable. It pulls so much harder, the torque is much more useable, and it's always been fast on the motorway, but now it bloody flies!

Very happy, it's given the car a huge new lease of life!

 

[Andy_Mk3]

Can't believe how much of a mess that exhaust was. It's something you might expect on a shitty old Astra, not an Audi A6

I watched your youtube video last night, was great! Making bloody good power now too, amazing gains on N/A!

 

[rc]

Another thing I got sorted was the passenger side front door had the C5 common problem of sitting on the second latch. It's actually been doing it for the last 2 or 3 years , but I got divorced 2 years ago so no one really sits in the front



I got new catch off eBay, unbranded but £19.99



Got it out



And solved the problem straight away all this time people have been jumping in and never being able to close the door, 20quid and half an hour it's fixed

I gave this task a little go at vlogging and editing to see how much hassle it was



Didn't come out too bad

 

[Kev_mk3]

Enjoyed the vlog its what I like to watch! How many and what cameras did you use? Editing takes a ages doesn't it

 

[rc]

Enjoyed the vlog its what I like to watch! How many and what cameras did you use? Editing takes a ages doesn't it

I've got a Sony hx80 and gopro hero4 silver. The gopro seems to have a clearer pic in the video but worse audio. Maybe it's in the settings as the hx80 is supposed to be a fairly decent vlogger. I've got everything just set on auto at the mo

It makes everything take loads longer thinking about camera angles and filming, very Hollywood, but it is fun. I did spend a long time on the editing, same with everything I do, I get carried away with trying to make it perfect I'm happy with the editing for a first go though.

 

[rc]

Something else that needed attention was the drivers side front wheel bearing. It had been getting noisier and noiser to the point where it over droned the exhaust, and that's saying something on this thing, we had a camping trip in Norfolk coming up so wanted to get it done before the journey.

Got onto TPS for a new wheel bearing.



And rolled the Audi in the unit



Strip down







It all pretty much fell apart without a lot of effort



Grinded the inner race off



And tapped the new bearing on



All went really well untill..........



I did up the pinch bolt and it suddenly went loose, I thought it'd snapped the bolt, but turned out it had cracked the leg itself :cry:





Years of it coming on and off on and off had finally taken it's toll!

This put me in a real shitter, I was supposed to be off on holiday in a few days, and I knew S6 parts were hard to get hold of at the best of times :cry:

I did a bit of research and part number goofing to see what else the legs were fitted to, I know there was different types as Euro car parts sent me arms with the wrong size ball joints before. It looked like the S6 and RS6 get their wide body track from wider wheel bearings, it shares the legs them selves with other V6 quattro A6's. And the part numbers confirmed this.

So got on to eBay and there were a few V6 alloy legs, but hundreds of pounds and miles away! But then spotted a A6 3.0 quattro breaking about 40 mins away, quick message and he said he still has it for £40! I sent my dad on a little road trip while I was at work and he returned with this



So stripped everything down, luckily the wheel bearings are bolt on, so could take the new ones off





The V6 A6 hubs compared to the V8 S6. So that confirms it, the wide body get their extra track from the hub flange.






Something I remembered from when Jordan fitted the 18z Porsche 6pots was he had the shave down the caliper mounting lugs a few mm as the offset is slightly off.



The new leg



The old leg



And he had to shave a bit off the leg for disc clearance at the bottom



Like so





Then on to the offset problem, here you can see how much over one side it is, it's actually touching the disc



A lot of filing and measuring later, as these need to stay dead flat




And we have clearance both sides again



And back together




And made it to camping



And a trip to London as well, stayed in good company

 

[rc]

With a big car show coming up locally I wanted to spruce the Audi up as it is my daily it does get used and abused everywhere and anywhere.

First off I had caught the wheels a couple of times, nothing bad, but still annoyed me



So a good mate of mine has just opened a wheel referb shop so I paid him a visit to get them sorted



And then it was time to sort the paintwork. Even though it was only re sprayed a year ago, it sits at my work down the docks for 12hours 4 times a week getting covered in fallout. Diesel pollution, dust, and bird ****. It wasn't scratched or scuffed any where, but quite rough to the touch

Taped it all up



Here's the roof, this is still the 18 year old audi paint, the reflection is ok, but a bit fuzzy



After a hard cut with the machine polished and a buff up and I had the desired effect



Next I flatted the headlights down





And machine polished up





Then it was time to do the rest of the car!



Stage 1 complete



And then a waffle



Which took a long time



And complete



Wheels and brakes cleaned inside and out



Also got some new number plates as mine had gone a bit off white



And then the next day it was the Low Collective show




















I'd forgotten how black it was

 

[rc]

After a long trouble free time enjoying the S6, as always it has come to a brief end. The last week or so I'd noticed a little bit of a chain rattle on start up, only for about a second, and a bit of rough idle, then it was fine. I'd put it down to the weather suddenly turning colder.

HOWEVER.... started it up the other day and it was wrattking and clanging like an old rotorvator! I knew straight away what had happened. Long term readers will remember 3 years ago I had the drivers side cam chain tensioner let go. Followed by a whole load of problems with the wrong side cam tensioner being supplied, oil cooler water pipe leaking and a whole load of drama, it deserved a thread of its own really!
Back then I did removed and inspect the passenger side tensioner too and inspect it but there was hardly any wear so I didn't replace it at the time.
So I knew what to expect, and unfortunately I knew the price of the parts.

It still ran so I drove it down to my unit.



Stripped off all the LPG and everything else to uncover the cams



And sure enough greeting me was part of the slider



And metal on metal on the chain



Slid the front out to gain access to the cam belt



Still had the locking bar. My dad had modified it for when he did the cam belt on his 2.8 V6 4motion Passat. The V6 and V8 are almost identical but the V6 is a few mm narrower than the V8 so we had to put in an extra pair of holes.



And it slotted straight in, no resistance at all which is reassuring after 3 years hard use.



The fan was a bit bloody tight to get off, had to wind a old belt around the pulley and get a extra pole on the already big 32mm spanner





Had to get a bit of extra leverage on the cam belt tensioner too as was very tough!



With the cam belt off I could then get the cams out



Revelling the chain has made quite a groove in the head whilst rattling around!



Last time I remembered most of the cam guides ended up in the sump so I dropped that off



And sure enough



I'm fairly happy I've recovered all the bits



So next to get the bits Monday! I remember last time the tensioner alone was about £500!

 

[Andy_Mk3]

Ah man what a nightmare!

 

[djwilde69]

That's all damn expensive that

 

[rc]

Doing the job stripping down half the engine doesn't bother me, it's just the parts bill. I reckon it's going to be about £800 with the oil etc :cry:

 

[Andy_Mk3]

I'll stick with my humble A3 lmao!

 

[rc]

So this is what £700 looks like



Apparently it's the last tensioner in the country so I was lucky I'm still waiting for the cam seals but they should be here tomorrow, but of a pain as they are pretty much the first thing to go on.

Got the other bits prepped ready as I couldn't crack on.
Cleaned up the sump, but of a pain as i'd only had that off 6 months ago to reseal it.



Cleaned all the sealer out of the bolt threads




And clean!




Fired up the old steam computer with elsawinto remind me the torque settings



And refitted with new audi sealant



A problem I remember having last time was when torquing the cam caps down (about five times in a week ) the threads started pulling out of the head, so I had to helicoil a few.



I wasn't going to mess around this time so I helicoiled the lot in preparation

Masked it all up



And I still had the helicoil kit from last time



Drilled them out



Tapped them out



And wind in the insert



Wallah



Got this far but couldn't do any more as I couldn't get the drill in




Quick trip to screwfix




And could carry on



I got them all done apart from the very back bottom two. I've cleaned out the threads so hopefully they'll be fine



I whipped off the other rocker cover as it was seeping at bit at the back, and I had the good sealer out from the sump



The other tensioner is still looking good 3 years later



Took the end core plug out





And sealed it all up with the sump sealer. This is how tight it is, this is the biggest thing you can get in the bottom bolts. Luckily the torque setting is an angle one.



Like I said, hopefully I will get the cam seals tomorrow and can crack on after work

 

[Andy_Mk3]

God you don't **** about I'd have got all that masking done and called it a night

 

[rc]

Got the cam seals (£50 for the pair!)



Got elsawin back out



And could get the cams in, glued up the core plug this side too



And got the tensioner in





Popped the other side pully off



An could time it all back up



New seals for the cam cover



And started putting it back together



I found one of the aux belt idlers had a knackered bearing, which is what the annoying squawking it used to chirp was, so got a new one of them



All built up, and you can't even see the £500 tensioner





And do finished



While it was up in the air I whipped the front pads out as every now and then I have to take the burr off the edge or they start to squeak



Quick rub over



Pads don't last long on this thing, or that might be my driving



As I live in the countryside black cars don't stay black for long do I just leave it dirty





Wheels were filthy



So as they were off I gave them a good clean





And then the rest of the car





And it's BACK!

 

[rc]

Whilst carrying out the previous repairs I noticed a bit of coolant staining on the head and it was wet around the seam of the header tank



I couldn't find an aftermarket header tank anywhere so had to go back to TPS again for another £50



The leak had got quite a bit worse at the seam



But now good as new



Everything wet as i gave it a hose down because everything was sticky with antifreeze

 

[Andy_Mk3]

Nice Antifreeze is bloody horrible stuff, it's like impossible to clean up without a hose pipe.