raj99

I did lower the exhaust but that was because I was about to update my exhaust system and wanted to take a look at exactly what I'd need to do.

It actually want very difficult once you realize there is no plugs at the bottom and you need to empty and fill from the same plugs up top.

DreewMcK

do you think it would be possible to do it without lowering exhaust? why is it that it has to be lowered, getting at the plug or getting a tube in to drain/fill?


I think with a stubby socket I could get a small rachet on it and bust it loose. Unless it is a really deep plug I think it would come out on its own ok turning by hand once loosened with wrench.


It seems like there is enough room to get a tube in there, but I have read that it needs to be bent in just the right manner, in somewhat of a U shape to get the fluid in/out...


When you dropped the exhaust was it just the rear hangers you had to get off or was it more than that?

raj99

I took off from the rear hangers for the primary purposes for test fitting an aftermarket exhaust.

akingzkid

Ok. So I am deciding to add my 2 cents on my experience with changing my diff/transaxle fluids to this 1.5 year old thread as opposed to starting a new thread. My car is an 06 A6 3.2 Quattro.
Will post pictures of this job later. I changed front and rear differential fluids and transaxle fluid. Let me start by saying that this was NOT an easy job. I had my car on a lift. You MUST have the right size hoses and a second set of hands aren't bad either. I would actually go so far as to say that a second set of hands are REQUIRED if the diameter of your hose that you are using to transfer the fluid is not small enough to fit all the way into the differentials/transaxle.


As others have mentioned, the rear has a drain plug (on bottom) and fill plug (on the side) but the front and transaxle only has one plug (on the sides) and you have to suck the fluid out of each and pump the fluid in via this plug. I went round and around for weeks on what fluid I should go with. I got advice from several people on this forum, did LOTS of research myself (mostly reading other peoples posts on this forum and Audizine forum) and called Redline and asked them if I should use the regular 75W-90 GL-5 fluid, 75W-90 NS (GL-5) fluid or the one that I ended up using. I decided to use Redline MT 90 75W-90 GL-4 fluid for the rear and front diffs.



For the rear diff I drained it from the drain plug and filled it from the fill plug (no brainer there). The drain plug and fill plug both took a 10mm Allen wrench. To fill it, it was a 2 person job because it was impossible to hold the tube inside the diff and pump the fluid out of the bottle. *****Huge tip*****..Since I was using the redline bottles that have the very small opening, I poured the fluid into a clean, empty mobile 1 oil quart bottle (with large opening). That allowed the pump that I was using to screw down onto the bottle. For the rear I used a little cheap soap dispenser looking pump (will post pic later). Again, someone had to pump while the other person held the tubing barely inside the opening to the diff. Filled until it slowly started to drip out of the fill hole (approx 1.5 qts). This was the easiest of the 3 to do.



For the front diff I removed the passenger side front tire and then had to remove the metal flashing/shield (3 bolts that were 6 mm Allen wrench) around the front passenger side axle so that I could get to the bolt on the front diff. I tried all sorts of sockets with swivels and the "L" shaped Allen wrench and could not get anything to fit well enough inside that bolt to turn it until I removed that metal flashing. The bolt on the front diff is a 8mm Allen. I have seen posts on this forum that say it is the same size as the rear (10mm) but it is not, it is a 8mm. This bolt was on pretty good. I had to spray it with liquid wrench and let it sit for a few minutes. Ended up having to use a breaker bar to generate enough force to break the bolt loose. After getting the bolt out I had to then use a syringe looking pump (looks just like a large syringe with a long stiff 12"-18" straw looking thing on the end)(will post a pic later). Luckily the place I was doing the work had this because both of the suction kits that I had would not fit in the hole to get to the fluid to suck it out. Since the syringe had a very stiff tube on the end, it allowed me to shove it all the way into the diff. I went straight in from the side. I filled up about 4 syringes with the old fluid (about 1 qt)(I sucked it straight out of the redline bottle using the syringe). I then had to put the fluid back in with the same syringe. The opening is very small once inside the plug area. So, if you are doing this at home I would advise you to have some tubing with a pretty small diameter (and have some different options). I was able to pump about a quart in (same amount I removed) until it started dripping out.



This is where it gets real interesting. For the transfer case I removed a metal brace that runs under the car from one side of the car to the other (had 4 bolts on it and I needed a special bit with a lot of teeth on it to remove those bolts). Again, glad that I was at a place that had this tool. Removing this wasn't necessary but it made getting the bolt out a lot easier because it allowed me to get a breaker bar on the L-shaped Allen wrench to break the bolt loose. Without doing so, I could not generate enough power on the L shaped allen wrench to break the bolt loose (could not get a socket/ratchet on it even with a swivel). This bolt also took a 8mm Allen wrench. Here is the interesting part.......I tried to use all of the suction devices I had to include the syringe with the long stiff "straw" on it and I could not get any fluid to come out. So, I had to use a special air pump to suck the fluid out. It hooked to an air compressor hose. It had a larger diameter hose on it but I took my very small diameter, stiff hose and shoved it inside that larger diameter hose and then shoved the smaller hose way down into the transaxle. After about 5 min of sucking it had only sucked about 1/4 qt out and wouldn’t suck anymore. I pulled the tube out of the transaxle and dumped that fluid out and hooked it up again and it sucked another 1/4 qt out (for a total of about 1/2 qt). From what I have read, this is all that is in the transaxle so I was happy to get that much sucked out. To pump in the very expensive $80 quart Audi fluid (G055-145-A2), I used the same syringe looking device but this time instead of putting the hard stiff piece of the syringe in the transaxle hole (I couldn't because of the angle), I shoved a small piece of my hard, small diameter tubing inside the "straw" and pumped 1/2 qt (1 syringe at a time) back in. It was VERY hard pumping in and I had to go really, really slow. This was probably a combination of how small the diameter of the tubing was and what I have read about the transaxle having 2 chambers that have to fill. I pumped until it slowly started to drip out of the fill hole.



To my surprise my "Quattro rumble" is pretty much gone............but I have heard that this will only last about 6 months.

akingzkid

Here are the pictures.



Old rear diff fluid. Dark but not horrible (I guess)


Old rear diff fluid (not too bad looking)


Old front diff fluid (looks really dark)


Putting old front diff fluid in empty oil quart to measure how much I have removed from diff.


Old front diff fluid (looked really dark in the syringe but not so dark when squirting it into oil bottle)


Fresh front diff fluid (redline) ready to squirt into front diff.


Device I had to use to suck the fluid from the transaxle (notice the smaller black tube inserted inside the larger clear tube)


Sucking fluid from transaxle


Old transaxle fluid (looks pretty dark)


Unicorn tears (aka Audi transaxle fluid)