Transmission Died, couple of Qs

[mtx801]

Well the transmission in my A4 bit the dust (metal dust to be exact). I figured the easiest place to start was to drain the trans fluid and the drain plug magnet had metal shavings in it but what was really amazing was that once the fluid drained out I was able to pull solid metal pins out of the transmission.



Now those could never cause any trouble...

I'm trying to get the trans out but am running into a few odd problems. I tried to search but none of the threads have the info I need. The bolts that attach the intermediate pipe to the cat, what size are these? The ones on my car are a bit rusty and it seems no matter what size I try (12/13mm or 1/2"-7/8"), one is too big one is too small. I've gotten two of the three out (one came out normally the other I had to cut the head off the bolt to get it out) but the third one, I'm not sure how to get to it. This is the one that is on the "top" of the flange. It looks like I can get to it from the engine compartment but when I put a socket on it the cat's heat shield gets in the way. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.

I'll post some pics of the trans after it comes out and I get it open.

[dougyfresh]

The easiest way I've found to get that 3rd bolt out is to remove the cat from the turbo, remove the back of the exhaust and then drop the whole system down to about the lower transmission level. From there you can get an angle grinder in to cut the bolt off. Well, that is what I did to remove the original bolts. I've since switched over to locking stainless steel bolts and have removed them about four times with just a socket and a wrench.

Info on removing the cat from the turbo can be found here: http://www.a4mods.com/index.php?page...s/exhaust.html
(scroll down to section 2 near the bottom)



EDIT: You also don't need to remove the exhaust to get the transmission out.