sswari

Tanya,

Having recently swapped a 6hp19 out on my A6, your comments on doing it right vs blood and guts rings very true. When removing the starter for example, I looked and fought with that dang thing for a good hour and a half, before I decided to pull the motor mount and brackets like the manual said to do. The thought of dong that was very scary, but in realty, it was the only way to get the job done and was quite easy. It also revealed a very damaged motor mount. I have come to realize that the engineers at Audi have done some amazing work. It is getting to the point, I would rather work on or under my A6 then my wife's Chrysler town and county.


Thanks for the post

tanya_charbury

That brightened my day, reading that. :-) Thank you.

I've found that the more someone is involved in a particular field of endeavor (e.g,, professional food prep, in my mom's case, or engineering, in my case) then the more one is able to be appreciative of the efforts of others. By extension, the most engineering-savvy people tend to be the most appreciative of good engineering.

On the opposite end of the scale, those most critical of engineering tend to be on the more-clueless side of the scale. For example, when I was a green software engineer, I used to criticize Microsoft's software without much hesitation, but the more I got involved with the rationale behind why they built something in a particular way (including actually working at Microsoft) the more I appreciated the point that how they built something was often a very savvy way, and sometimes even the only way, given the relevant constraints. It was a very humbling realization.

I started my evaluation of Audis with a much nicer attitude and for the most part, their engineering blows me away as to quality and insight.

I'm not saying engineers are infallible, but for the most part when I work on an Audi and something looks very difficult, there's often a trick to it, thanks to some clever Audi engineering. For example, my tech tends to be very mellow but putting the crankshaft lock in position, or holding the rotor in position with the wheel removed ... that always irked him at how difficult these were. And sure enough, there were some "make it easy" engineering ways to approach this. It's almost like that Staples commercial with the "[Make it] Easy" button. Audis have this button too, when working on them -- it's just invisible.

~T

ocles_inc

Just over a month or so ago, I announced that I found it quite easy to take the engine+transmission+sub-frame out of an Audi D2 A8, as a set and toward the front. Imagine the engine+transmission+sub-frame being out of the car ... that's a lot of emptiness. That's nice and all, but not quite as impressive as also putting it all back together again, later.

When I chose this approach, I was quite concerned because there seemed to be an awful lot of hoses and wires to hook up again on this very intimidating-looking car. Could my tech and I figure it out relatively easily, or would this be a death march project with many problems that have to be tediously resolved one by one, before the car starts and the transmission works?

Well, today, I found out. Spoiler alert: victory!! In more detail:

I wasn't at the shop while my tech was putting things back, but the dynamic that we have is that he does whatever he's comfortable with and then he announces when he's run into a complexity. Yet, no such announcement came. When I finally showed up at my shop, more out of curiosity than necessity, he announced that it had all come together surprisingly easily, especially the electrical wiring. He and I put back the radiator support beam, he put back the bumper and did a few more get-it-ready tasks (hook up the battery, put in coolant), and then I had the honor of turning the key.

The engine started immediately, yay!
lver 99 car is ready for its transmission fluid to be optimally filled, as in the fluid being between 30 and 50 degrees Celsius with the engine running while someone pumps fluid in the bottom until it overflow the fill hole.

The engine started right up ... that's after all the wiring, hoses, etc. were detached from the car. So, I was impressed.

I plugged in my Ross-Tech cable and laptop, and I ran the VCDS software to monitor the transmission fluid temperature while my tech finished up the fill-up-the-transmission task. We also added more coolant, added power steering fluid and then I put the selector into "reverse." That was another moment of truth. This would be the first time this transmission had driven since I'd bought it, used.

It ran fine, yay! It worked in TipTronic mode and normal mode, all forward gears plus reverse. I drove it gently and then hard, and it behaved fine either way.

This transmission was a used one I'd bought from someone who vouched for it, and then my tech and I stripped it down to some extent, including removing the clutch A drum, to inspect it. We also replaced the bearing just outside the "C" clutch as the ZF distributor had suggested, since that's a high-rate-of-failure item. We also replaced the various seals as wise people, savvy about this transmission, have suggested I should focus on. We also installed a front lower valve body housing that had its pressure regulator renewed by the ZF distributor, to prevent the classic point of failure whereby the clutch "A" drum fails. We also installed a new ZF original filter, new ZF original pan gasket, the officially to-spec honey-colored Ravenol fluid ... good to go.

Sometimes, the transmissions I inspect shows evidence that suggests to me that someone had been in there and had not been all that clear on how to work with the internals of these ZF 5HP-24A transmissions -- by my standards, anyway. This particular transmission looked pristine inside, so I was happy to leave the internals from the C-clutch on and back .... just as the ZF factory had made it, plus wear and tear.

I'm shooting for the mid-way price-and-quality point, as I sell these used partially-rebuild ZF 5HP-24 transmissions. What I offer is intended to be better than a used transmission sold by a generic junkyard, but less-fully-renewed than someone who dismantles everything in the case, renews enough of it with high-enough-quality parts to make things better, and puts it all back together again. So far there seems to be some demand for my offering and price point, yay! The reason my tech and I installed this transmission is that a buyer test-drove this car with the transmission that was previously in it. We also plugged in a cable and ran the VCDS software, and ran the diagnostics. The buyer liked what he saw, so he bought that transmission. So, here comes the next one. The plan is for me to drive this D2 A8 car in everyday conditions and see how it behaves over a reasonable period of time. I love my job :-)

If the transmission behaves fine, then it becomes available for sale. That's basically my business plan. So far, so good. The 3-year proportional money-back guarantee helps assuage concerns too, I hope.

Anyway, that's the news, here from northern Nevada. :-)

~Tanya