ocles_inc

Rebuilding an entire ZF 5HP-24A transmission is, to me, the automotive mechanic’s equivalent of having a black belt in martial arts. I have yet to achieve anything remotely approaching that level of proficiency. However, I am happy to be a humble supplier for such worthy endeavors.

During the mid-1800s California gold rush, I would probably not have been digging for gold, but I would probably have provided some sort of support service or supply house for the gold miners. I'm doing something similar here, for fun and profit.

By far the best quality and lowest risk is for you to buy genuine ZF parts for your transmission rebuild, and for that, I strongly endorse Eriksson Industries in Connecticut. However, in the rare event that they do not have the part required on hand, and time is of the essence -- or if your budget is sufficiently humble to require used parts, then please consider me as your source. I like to avoid selling parts that should not be sold in used condition, such as seals and bearings. However, for some large parts, it might make sense to buy these in used condition.

This particular forum thread focuses on the oil pump. Ostensibly, this is the first big part you’re likely to remove from the inside of this transmission during disassembly, because all the clutches and the planetary gear set are behind it.




If your mechanical skills are on a par with mine, there's a fairly good chance of you destroying unlikely items in the course of your work, and so you might need to replace various oil pump parts.

Also, if your ability to wrap projects up well matches mine, you might have your project stall for months or years, and by the time you resume the work, at best you might be able to find the large pieces of the oil pump that you disassembled way back when, but the little pieces will be long gone. For such situations, I might also be a viable source of used parts.

Much as I intend to make vast fortunes by selling used ZF 5HP-24A oil pump parts, I do also intend to provide useful information along the way, mostly drawn from embarrassing personal experience that you might be able to avoid duplicating, by learning from my mistakes.

Meanwhile, if you need anything specific, please contact me.

~Tanya

ocles_inc

These last few days, I have been focusing on the oil pump of the ZF 5HP-24A transmission, the all-wheel drive version as used in the C5 Audi A6 and D2 A8 Quattro 4.2 V8.

One of the first steps in disassembling the transmission is the removal of the oil pump. In the process, sometimes things go wrong, so I have been curious as to whether or not some of the oil pump parts in the ZF 5HP-24 transmission, the rear wheel drive version as used in BMW, Jaguar and Range Rover, might be identical, so that if I break an Audi part (hard to find), I can swap in a good used part from a BMW (easy to find).

Specific to the transmission oil pumps, I have spent some time comparing the ZF parts catalog for the ZF 5HP-24 (rear-wheel drive) to the catalog for the ZF 5HP-24A (the all-wheel drive Audi version).

Going by both the diagrams and the part numbers, I conclude that there’s very little that these two respective oil pump designs have in common as to the large components, including where they feature in the grand scheme of things. On the Audi model, the entire oil pump is inside the transmission case, whereas on the rear-wheel-drive version, the outside of the oil pump is exposed to the elements, and is sandwiched between the bell-housing and the transmission case. As such, the rear-wheel drive version has an external breather, and cover.

As to the small components such as the needle bearing, o-ring, seals, snap ring, piston rings and screws, these have a huge overlap, as in: many identical parts are used in both types of transmission.