Avant Crossroads

[Bko]

So to put everything in perspective I currently have 3 1999.5 b5 a4s. 1 silver sedan 1.8t 5spd stage 1, 1 brilliant black 1.8t 5spd ko4 pc16 supporting mods. and recently purchased volcano black avant 2.8l auto.

I original was on the hunt for some rims and tires for the sedans, I had one good set between the two and was getting ready to downsize my b5 collection. While on craigslist I found the Avant, tires only had 500 miles, car was dirty in the pics but body was straight and appeared black. I assumed it was the same as my black sedan but soon found out this was not the case. the black sedan needed a fender and door, window regulator clips and other odds and ends. supposedly the car needed cam tensioner but had some maintenance items done such as timing belt and sensors. The seller wanted 400 so I figured I could not get hurt at the price and went and checked it out.

At first site I realized the car was not black almost looked dark gray. tires and rims checked out, interior trashed, and the owner not really sure what was wrong with the car. I almost backed out, but I drove an hour with a truck and trailer figured I needed tires and still could use the body panels even though they were a different color. so I loaded it up.

The exterior of the car cleaned up better than I expected and I slowly started falling for the Avant. I have always wanted one. I had hoped to fix the engine and drive it, but this was shot down quickly. I found one of the piston had a hole in it. so an engine replacement is in order.

This brings me to my crossroad. Purchase a 2.8 replacement and drive the avant selling my sedans. Most people say that the 2.8l and automatic is miserable to drive. Can anyone give any incite on this? The other option I’ve been contemplating is swapping the drivetrain from the k04 car into the Avant. Does anyone have any info on this swap? From my research it looks like it’s not the bad being that I have a donor car. What would I swap engine, engine harness, transmission, rear diff, ecu, clutch pedal and slave cylinder parts. If it wasn’t an avant I would just pull the parts I needed and part the rest out, but I don’t want to do it to a avant.

Will the swap be worth it or are the gains only marginable? The car will mainly be used as a commuter; I want to be able to enjoy my commute the k04 currently does this. Will the 2.8 auto leave me disappointed. The hopes would be to sell the silver car and either sell or part out the black car depending on the route I take.
Sorry for the long read. Hopefully someone can help me with my madness.
Below are some bad pictures of the avant.

[Cactus Avant]

Drivetrain swaps aren't the easiest, but definitely doable. Personally, Id totally swap the drivetrain in and rock the avant. I love avants.

[tar]

Volcano avant shits on a brilliant sedan. Its not even close imo.

That said its better to find a correct motor correct trans avant since they are very cheap anyways these days. Ur call if you have heaps of free time go for it.


That said I skimmed the post so maybe I read stuff wrong

[Bko]

Yesterday I pulled the motor and transmission out of the Avant. I had some difficulties being my first time pulling a 2.8 and automatic trans. I have pulled a 1.8t and manual a few times and tried to use the same techniques, this was a bad idea. I usually leave the cv axels in, I found this will not work in the 2.8 without removing the entire transmission mount. Also I on the 1.8t I would usually just unhook the heater core hoses from the engine once I got it pulled out a couple inches. The 2.8 it was necessary to unhook it at the heater core on the firewall. Other than that it wasn’t too bad.

Today I degreased the engine bay. I used my foam cannon with degreaser and some Cg honeydew snow foam. This worked extremely well would recommend it over cans of degreaser. when I bought the car I asked the seller if the car used any oil, he said no. Although the inches of oil and dirt on the sub frame showed this was not the case.

At this point I am 90% sure I’m going to swap my 1.8t and manual in it. I start school at the end of August so I am shooting to have this done by then. The only thing I’m not sure of is the wiring changes, reverse light, clutch switch, cluster programming I’ll be looking into theses tonight.

Has anyone ever tried to put sedan carpet? The Avant has tan carpet that is stand so I’m going to try swapping in the black carpet from my sedan.

Going to pull the 1.8t and trans tomorrow or the next day. Hopefully getting this swap rolling.

No pictgures of the progress, Ill try and get better at taking pictures during the process.

[Bko]

Not much progress today.

I Originally planed to use the CV axles out of the 1.8t 5spd car but it looks like the outer splines are different. 33spline vs 38 spline, I see two options swapping the outer joints on the axles or swapping up rights.

Has anyone ever swapped the outer joints on the Cv's before. Im leaning in this direction vs the uprights, will give me a chance to repack the cv joints with new grease and inspect the boots. ill compare the two when I get the axles out of the car.

[Bordom]

Not much progress today.

I Originally planed to use the CV axles out of the 1.8t 5spd car but it looks like the outer splines are different. 33spline vs 38 spline, I see two options swapping the outer joints on the axles or swapping up rights.

Has anyone ever swapped the outer joints on the Cv's before. Im leaning in this direction vs the uprights, will give me a chance to repack the cv joints with new grease and inspect the boots. ill compare the two when I get the axles out of the car.

Swap the uprights, so much easier than fucking with CV joints

Everything graciously mispelled by Android

[Bko]

Being in Michigan I was concerned with messing with the pinch bolt if not necessary.

Maybe Ill just swap the corners as a whole. I considered just swapping the sub frames, but i'm not sure how well that would work without an hoist.

[seanf86]

a 2.8 auto isn't that bad, we used to have a 99 b5 sedan 2.8 auto and it was still pretty fun and had a good amount of passing power on the highway, right now I'm actually driving my tiptronic b5s4 for work because driving a manual around town has become a pain in my ass, I'd just toss another 2.8 in it and drive it, for stop and go I find the 2.8 to have more low end grunt for city driving and would prefer it over a 1.8t

[a4kamila6]

a 2.8 auto isn't that bad, we used to have a 99 b5 sedan 2.8 auto and it was still pretty fun and had a good amount of passing power on the highway, right now I'm actually driving my tiptronic b5s4 for work because driving a manual around town has become a pain in my ass, I'd just toss another 2.8 in it and drive it, for stop and go I find the 2.8 to have more low end grunt for city driving and would prefer it over a 1.8t

My daily is a b5 2.8 tiptragic and to be honest, i love it. For city driving its great and still has enough passing power. aint no 2.7 but she gets the job done.

[Bko]

Quick update
I have pulled the motor and transmission out of both cars. I have almost pulled all the parts of the 1.8t car I will need for the Avant.
Pedals
Slave cylinder and lines
Heater core hoses
P.S line
Shifter Assembly
I am going to swap rear diff once I have the car running. I had hoped I could use the mount off the 2.8 Transmission and use the sub frame from the 2.8. I don’t know why I thought this would work, but it won’t. So I’m going to swap sub frames. This will get me the correct uprights for the cv axels and mounts have.
Anyone did a manual swap on a dbc car. All the post I have found have been dbw cars. Curious the chances of getting my cruise to work. I’m thinking I might be able to make it work, I will just have to splice in the vacuum switch that kills the cruise when the clutch is activated. I don’t have a Bentley manual so no wiring diagrams to look at.
I’ve been looking at the carpet in the sedan and I don’t see any reason why it won’t fit in the Avant. So I will be swapping this as well.
I plan to swap all the need parts to the Avant tomorrow and the following day drop the motor and transmission in.
Does anyone have any suggestion on a Fmic that fits behind the front bumper while keeping the fogs? I’ll look it to it more later but the one I have now fits horrible and the bumper had to be hacked apart to make it fit. Hoping for a cleaner install this time.

[Bko]

Im hoping the swap will be complete by the end of today.
I have successfully swapped the. PS line, pedal assembly, slave cylinder, subframe.
looks like the park relay, spot 13 supply ground to start. at least that what i read in another post. Im going to jump it for now, but hoping i can get it to work properly. Does any one know if the clutch switch supply's power or ground to the relay ?
I pulled the carpet out due to being wet due to the PO leaving a hole for a power wire open. Im swapping my carpet to black any ways. I made a slit in the carpet behind the center conoule so i did not have to pull it. Is this how most people do it?
As ive stated earlier im not good at taking pictures during the process, but I do have some so I will post them when finish.

[Bko]

small update
Cars running.
Will have to swap the diff tomorrow and bleed brakes and slave cylinder.
Need to post some pictures at some point.
The swap was very straight forward. Wiring was all pretty straight forward other than ac fan and radiator temp gauge. Going to rewire the fan. I put the 2.8 radiator sensor in the extra spot on the coolant flange hopefully this works. Only issue I could see is that it would kick the fan on early because the engine will get to temp faster then the radiator.

[Bko]

Put 50 miles on it today everything seems good to go. Still need to get the reverse lights and cruise to work.
Again I suck at taking pictures during the process.

[Bko]

So the car is almost completely done in terms of the swap. Only thing left it to rewire reverse lights and install front bumper. Waiting on the bumper because i'm thinking about going a different route with the inter-cooler. The one I have currently you have to hack up the front bumper and nobody likes that.
So I haven't really posted many pictures thought the swap so I will do that now.

Heres an Engine shot of the 2.8 before it was removed.





These pictures show how nasty the 2.8 was. I asked the PO if it used oil. he said he never had to add any, but these pictures and the paper funnels in the car show that was a lie.

[/URL]




Picture of the subframe from the 1.8 car being degreased. I used my foam canon with degreaser and dawn dish-soap. This worked extremely well.


During the Subframe swap


At this point I was done with the swap and moved my focus to the interior of the car.

Tear in drivers seat. You can also see how disgusting the center console was. How does one let their car get this filthy?







So I swapped in most of the black interior from the car I robbed the 1.8t from. I decided to skip swapping the dash at this time.







I then gave the exterior of the car a good cleaning. CG honeydew out the foam cannon, 2 bucket method, spray wax.

During the foam







After








The car cleans up pretty good for its age. I'm hoping to do some paint correction at some point, may wait tell spring. I've put a hundred or so miles on the car and I can say I'm happy with my choice to swap. All thats left to do is to lower the car and some rims. I have some lowering springs on my other car I may just swap them over. I was happy with the ride they had.

[Cactus Avant]

Glad to see the swap when well. Avant is wayyyyy better than the sedan

[pgiuliano98]

^Agreed, shes lookin good!


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