Bought a parts car, swapping my drivetrain.

[ImRobBailey]

Backstory: Last year, my father-in-law gifted me his 80k mi '04 A4 B6 Cabriolet (fwd, cvt). He had sunk a bunch of money into it, and was looking down the barrel of some more costly repairs as the convertible top didn't function, and the car overheated when at a standstill. Within 3 months of owning the car, I had taken a trip to the junkyard and pulled a fan control module to fix the overheating, and bypassed the micro-switch in the trunk for the top stowage compartment. Everything works great, and I enjoyed the car for a Florida summer and winter before I started longing for more. By this time, I was just a lurker on these forums, reading Vizier's, 02VW1.8T, and Matt Devo's writeups of their transmission and drivetrain swaps, and I started itching to row through the gears with power to all four wheels. Furthermore, the process looked pretty straight forward: find a donor car, pull the drivetrain, weld two supports for the propshaft, and the rest of the bits just "bolt right up." So I started casually looking for donor cars by scanning CoPart, AutoTempest, LKQ yards near me, and of course FaceBook Marketplace. Sometime this February, I noticed a garish yellow B6 A4 5spd quattro sedan for sale in Tampa, just over 100mi away. After messaging with the seller for over a month, we finally agreed on a price, and scheduled a time for me to pick up the car.

This past weekend, I rented a U-Haul pickup truck and 4-wheel car hauler, grabbed a friend and made the drive to Tampa. After meeting the seller and chatting with him about the car for a couple minutes, we started to load up the car. During our negotiations, I'd secured the car for $500 with the provision that the seller would keep the wheels, turbo, intake & exhaust manifold, and cylinder head (he mentioned it was a ported AMB head) - basically all the bits I didn't want/need. For this to work I had put my convertible on stands, pull off the wheels and bring them with me to put on the yellow car. With my wheels on the yellow car, we pushed it as far as we could onto the car hauler, and then finished winching it onto the trailer with a comealong. Somewhere along the chain of previous owners, someone had chopped the front springs, so the front was incredibly low. Fortunately the car fit on the trailer without scraping, so we tied it down, paid the seller, and drove back home.

Arriving home during a cold rain shower (okay, okay, 50* isn't that cold, but FL), we decided to just drop the car off in my backyard, and wait for a drier day to pull the wheels. The following day was bright and sunny, with a high of 65*; perfect for figuring out the headache which lay before me. Until the car was sitting in my backyard, I hadn't considered what an enormous pain in the neck it would be to lift the front end with the suspension slammed so low. Using a combination of 2x12' footers, some bricks and spare block laying around, I alternately jacked up the front from the frame rail, then blocked the front subframe, jacked up from under the sway bar bushing, and was finally able to get a jack stand and footer under the pinch weld behind the front tire. From there, the tire dance began. First the front wheel came off the donor car, and was installed on my convertible. The jack stand which was freed by installing a wheel was moved to the yellow car so I could take off another wheel, and the process continued for all four wheels until my convertible was once again driveable, and the yellow car stood on stands in my backyard.

This is the end of step 1: acquire a donor car. Step 2 is to pull parts from the donor car, and will be started as I have time this week, or (most likely) this weekend.

Taking the drivetrain from the yellow A4 on the left and putting it in the blue A4 on the right:

[kwilson]

You're parting an Imola A4? That's a pretty rare car. Can you post a picture of the build sticker in the spare tire compartment?

[ImRobBailey]

I'd be happy to post a picture of the build sticker, but you'll have to point me to it. At a cursory glance, there aren't any stickers in the trunk or spare tire area. Let me know more specifically where to look and I'll snap a picture for you.

Additionally, I wouldn't quite say I'm "parting it out," more "using the rest of it." Notice the lack of interior, cylinder head, turbo, intake manifold, exhaust, wheels, trim pieces.

That said, the doors are in really good shape, no major dents or dings. If anyone sees anything they'd like from this shell, let me know and we can work something out!

[BerlinerB6]

The build sticker could also be on the back seat bench. Should be a roughly 6"x8" paper glued to the body if it's not in the spare tire well.

Sent from my IN2015 using Tapatalk

[kwilson]

Looks like this.

[ImRobBailey]

Just checked the entire interior of the donor car, under the hood, under the trunk lid liner, and I've got squat on a build sticker.

It doesn't look like the car has been resprayed yellow either - the entire interior metal is yellow.

I'm happy to keep looking, but nothing so far has caught my eye.

[kwilson]

Thanks. That looks like Imola Yellow. It would be an Audi Exclusive (special order) color on an A4. I was just curious as to what the build sticker shows for paint code. My Exclusive Nogaro A4 shows ----.

[ImRobBailey]

Looks like imgur might be the way to go with photos...

Here's the yellow & blue A4s:


Spare wheel well:


Rear seat bench:

[kwilson]

Looks like you got an extra 26 cents in the deal.

[ImRobBailey]

The adventure continues...after a nice visit from code enforcement who told me the parts car can't be in view from the street, I put wheels back on the yellow A4, and singlehandedly hauled it around my backyard with a comealong until mostly hidden from the street. I then covered it with a dark green tarp, and so far haven't heard anything else. Hopefully no one says anything about it for the next several months...

Yesterday once all my duties were finished, I finally got a chance to slide under the car and start taking things apart.


First, the driveshaft:
I started by loosening the bolts on the front and rear of the driveshaft. They're 6mm hex bolts, and likely incredibly tight. I used a hex key and a cheater bar for extra leverage to loosen them. If you have penetrating oil, you can save yourself a bunch of effort by applying it to the bolts prior to loosening them. Unfortunately, I didn't think that far ahead.

Loosen the 6x6mm hex bolts at the front of the driveshaft to separate it from the transmission:


One of the bolts had been enlarged for me. Fortunately, a 7mm hex key lightly hammered into the enlarged hole allowed me to extract the buggered bolt:


Loosen the 6x6mm bolts on the rear of the driveshaft to free it from the rear differential:


Remove the two plastic fasteners on the rear of the driveshaft coupler heat shield and the two 13mm bolts on the front of the heat shield:


While removing this heat shield, be aware that the two 13mm bolts on the front of the heat shield also fasten the driveshaft hanger to the car. If I'd fully removed the bolts from both ends of the driveshaft before I removed these 13mm bolts the entire driveshaft would have fallen on my head:


So I removed the heat shield, replaced the bolts holding the driveshaft bracket, and fully removed the bolts holding the driveshaft to the differential and transmission. Once those bolts were fully out, I loosened the driveshaft hanger and as I lowered the shaft, it came free from both sides relatively easily. The two-part driveshaft makes this really easy, as you can use the weight of the driveshaft to free it from the mating surfaces. I intended to make witness marks on both sides of the shaft, but completely forgot to mark it in the excitement of removing it. Hopefully this doesn't come back to bite me later...

The whole process took an hour, including running to the store to get appropriate hex keys and faffing about.

[ImRobBailey]

This past weekend a friend and I dropped the rear subframe from the car, and this morning I pulled the subframe and suspension from underneath the car.

Next steps are to free the pedal cluster, drop the fuel tank, and figure out how to remove the stripped cv axle triple square bolts.

[Dr.B6Banter]

The adventure continues...after a nice visit from code enforcement who told me the parts car can't be in view from the street, I put wheels back on the yellow A4, and singlehandedly hauled it around my backyard with a comealong until mostly hidden from the street. I then covered it with a dark green tarp, and so far haven't heard anything else. Hopefully no one says anything about it for the next several months...

Man Florida is the last place I'd expect something like that lol

[Dodaman]

Man Florida is the last place I'd expect something like that lol

I got the same thing happen in MD. Covid has so many new people outside walking, and someone tattled to the code enforcement. Had to move a vehicle after a sq footage clause was found that they throw in to just screw ya. Anyway, keep those pics coming. Interesting project.


Sent from my iPhone using Audizine

[ImRobBailey]

Man Florida is the last place I'd expect something like that lol

Seriously. I think it's mostly to do that it's bright yellow, and hard to miss. Yet several houses down the road there's a non-running trans-am that's been sitting for months.

I got the same thing happen in MD. Covid has so many new people outside walking, and someone tattled to the code enforcement. Had to move a vehicle after a sq footage clause was found that they throw in to just screw ya. Anyway, keep those pics coming. Interesting project.

You're 100% right about that. One thing the code officer mentioned is that if someone reported it, it would have to be cited...so I should get it out of sight. I hope under a tarp counts.



A couple updates:
The rear subframe is out completely. Good thing I wrapped a trash bag around the diff because it rained immediately after I took it out from under the tarp.


I think the way to go with this bit is to (eventually) swap the struts and springs (depending), then offer this up to the blue car, then remove the wheels and swap over the brakes. Whoever owned this yellow car previously had a real high quality set of color-matched calipers too...so I'll stick to what's on the blue car currently, just pick and choose what I want to keep.


Next up is to remove the fuel tank. Here's a view up the drive tunnel from where the rear subframe used to live:


The fuel tank straddles the drive tunnel in the quattro version, better seen in this picture from a bias:



Current issues:
I need to remove the pedal bracket. From everything I've read, there's one allen bolt (removed) holding the pedal bracket to the dash, then two allen bolts (removed) holding the clutch slave cylinder (?), and then a nut connecting the back of the brake pedal to a threaded rod that goes through the brake master cylinder.

So I want to remove the whole pedal group as a unit. The nut/rod connection is visible behind the brake pedal just to the left of the green mark.


Here's a detail of that connection. The rod coming from the rubber boot on the left runs through the brake master cylinder. The nut connected to this right is captive within the brake pedal. Directions are to "unscrew that nut and the pedal bracket is free." When I turn that nut, the rod turns with the nut. Vice grips around the rod don't do the trick either. I wonder if I'm missing a place on the other side of the firewall to place a wrench and stop it from turning. More reading to do, and other places to work on while I figure it out.


I proudly brought home some triple square sockets and started freeing the front axles from the transmission, only to notice that like so many other bolts and fasteners on this donor car, the interior of these bolts are no longer triple square, but just round:


I think the solution for these will be a 10" extension, an extractor set, and a manual impact wrench.

That's it for now. An hour here and there several times a week helps push this project along.

[Dodaman]

You're 100% right about that. One thing the code officer mentioned is that if someone reported it, it would have to be cited...so I should get it out of sight. I hope under a tarp counts.

A tarp should work if your laws are the same. In my county, code inspectors can NOT go on our property to look under a tarp, Private property. Total BS. If it is my private property, then they should just piss off and not worry about where we park our vehicle. (This is what my wife said the other day, LOL)

[ImRobBailey]

Returned the spring compressors to the auto parts store. Glad they didn't cost anything, because I didn't end up needing them. I was glad to have them on hand anyway.

Up next are the rounded off triple square bolts connecting the front axles to the transmission. First I thought I could grab them with some vice grips, to no avail; then I bought a set of extractors, and tried to use those with ratchets and a socket set, to no avail. I don't want to start using power tools, and I'd rather remove the bolts without involving power tools. If worse comes to worse, I'll dremel out a slot in the bolt or slice off the bolt heads. Spare axles should be easy to find if these get obliterated in the process.

Here's what I have in mind: Manual impact driver connected (eventually) to the appropriate sized extractor. See the mess pictured below:


I first learned about manual impact drivers when I was re-jetting my motorcycle's carburetor. The screws holding on the float bowl strip with even the slightest slip. This tool accepts different tips, and came with flathead or phillips bits. Underneath the stock equipped tip, it's just a 1/2" driver; slap a socket (or bit) on the end and smack it with a hammer/mallet.


These transmission flange bolts are pretty difficult to reach, and all of my sockets are 3/8" drive, so I'm adapting down to a 3/8" extension, completed with a socket to hold the extractor bit.


The terminal end, with extractor bit:


Perhaps I'll have time to dig into these a little bit this afternoon.

I've been trying to run the blue convertible out of gas so there's less to drain when it comes time to drop the gas tank. Just when I got it pretty close to E, we've decided to drive it out of town over the weekend (hurray second vaccination!), so it's been refilled with gas. Perhaps that was a bit early to drain it anyway. This will likely be the final long drive of the convertible as a fwd cvt car!



edit: I know, I know, I'm not "supposed to use some of those tools as impact tools." ...meh.

[ImRobBailey]

It's been a long time since my last update, I know...

After work today I crawled under the tarp and started hammering away at my contraption and had little success.

Eventually I realized I needed to drill out the bolts and then use the extractor bit. This is key. Without a solid wall to bite into, the extractors are unable to get a firm grasp of the bolt. Fortunately only three on the left needed to be drilled and extracted. I assume it's probably the same on the right hand side.

Bolts after extraction: the three bolts in the middle were drilled & extracted, the two flanking bolts were undamaged.


Transmission, left hand side. Looks a little manky in there; likely just surface rust and grime that will clean up okay.


Left front axle, removed:



For anyone extracting bolts: drill the bolt, then extract.

Drill the bolt, then extract.

[Dr.B6Banter]

Glad you were able to get them out. Those axle bolts are usually fine but you need to make sure you're not trying to loosen them at an angle because they are not forgiving and easily strip. There were a few suspicious ones during my drivetrain swap, but thankfully hammering the bit in and using an impact seemed to do the trick.

The benefit of doing a drivetrain swap is you have double the hardware in case you strip any bolts. Doesn't apply to stuff like axle bolts since those are torque to yield and should be replaced.

[ImRobBailey]

I'm fairly certain this parts car has been a parts car for several people in the past. I imagine the previous owner got to these bolts and gave up; he mentioned he was planning on swapping his drivetrain but "didn't want to take the time." I wonder if that meant "got stuck and didn't want to continue." I don't want to cast any aspersions on him though - he sounded like he knows what he's doing, and I'm just learning as I go. It is interesting to see how many hands the car has passed through before I got it. You can tell someone loved it a lot, but didn't have much money to put into it so just painted some things yellow and tinted the windows. Did I mention the cut front springs?

This was the first stripped bolt that really gave me much trouble, but fortunately I had plenty of other areas of work to occupy my efforts while I figured out a solution.

Things are moving though, and I feel like I'm getting close to actually putting parts on a car rather than just take them off!

In broad strokes, my plan is to:
Yellow Car

• Remove driveshaft (complete)
• Remove rear subframe (complete)
• Remove fuel tank
• Remove front axles (1/2 complete)
• Remove transmission
• Remove clutch and check/replace
• Remove pedal group
• Remove handbrake cables (optional)

Blue Car

• Remove rear subframe
• Remove fuel tank
• Install quattro fuel tank
• Install quattro rear subframe
• -car driveable, fwd only at this point-
• Recode ECU, EPS, ABS for manual transmission
• Remove front axles
• Remove transmission
• Install pilot bearing
• Install clutch
• Install 5sp quattro transmission
• Install front axles
• Install driveshaft
• Install pedal group

[ImRobBailey]

It's been a couple weeks since I've had a chance to do any meaningful work on the project, but I've finally made some headway in the past couple days. It's the middle of April, but it's been summer here in Florida for the past couple months. That means rain most days, and the past weeks have been no exception.

The front suspension is removed from the yellow car. What a difference having the correct tools makes:


Some of the suspension components will be reused, depending on how bad the suspension on the blue cab is. Most of the bushings and control arms look pretty new, so they may be good replacements:


When working outside under a tarp and space is at a premium, I store my parts in the car from which I'm removing them:


Yesterday I fought with the front right cv flange bolts; only 1 out of 6 was stripped, rather than the 3/6 I found stripped on the left side. Unfortunately this single stripped triple square bolt put up more fight than the other three combined, and just left me with a mangled bolt head. It's the only bolt holding the axle to the transmission, so I'm hoping once I pull the transmission out, it'll be easier to whack this stripped bolt off somehow. Either way, I'll have better access once the whole unit is out from under the car.


After battling with the front axle, I switched to another part of the car: the fuel tank. First get all the heat shielding out of there. 10mm bolts on the filler neck heat shield, and some 13mm bolts on the driveshaft tunnel shield that holds the brake cable brackets. Directions and forum posts I read instructed to "remove the fuel cap, then remove the rubber seal around the fuel filler neck." Whatever; it's a flexible rubber seal, and you should probably remove the fuel cap, but it may not matter. Move on. Find all the 13mm bolts holding on the fuel tank. On this 2003 B6 5MT Quattro, there were two 13mm bolts holding the filler neck to the body, and then 4x13mm bolts holding the fuel tank straps to the body. Before removing the straps and dropping the tank it's a good idea to disconnect the hoses running from the fuel tank to the evap system (someone correct my if my terminology is wrong, please!), and the fuel lines running forward on the right hand side. There are some vent lines that run through the body below the filler neck, so disconnecting those is a must as well. Without knowing how much fuel was in the tank, I had no way to estimate how much it weighed, but it definitely wasn't empty. Without being directly underneath the tank, I removed both fuel tank strap bolts closest to the front of the car, and the tank dropped a couple inches. Working my way back, I slowly removed the remaining two bolts, and the tank has enough flex to it that it fell gently to the ground.

I may have pulled around 2 gallons worth of fuel from the tank, but without knowing how old it is, or what was already in my drain bucket, I'm not using it even in my lawn mower. At least the fuel tank is lighter and easier to move around now:




Quattro rear end: empty.

[ImRobBailey]

Started looking after pulling out the transmission this morning. Looks like the trans mount connects up to the front subframe, so I may not even need to do any mount fabricating. Hope I didn't just jinx myself...

While I was looking at the transmission, I noticed this little crack on the bolt flange:


Further out, lower right trans bellhousing bolt:


Does this mean I need to find a new transmission? Or can I find a welding friend to fix it? Really hoping I don't need to find a new transmission.

[Dr.B6Banter]

You should be fine to get that welded up. There are quite a few bolts that hold the trans on and there is a decent safety factor so even if the welded repair isn't as strong as new it'll still be good enough.

[ImRobBailey]

Dr.B6Banter, do you have any advice on how to test a transmission to make sure it's functional and working before installing it? Due to the condition of other parts on this vehicle, I'm a little concerned about the health of the transmission.

[Dr.B6Banter]

Dr.B6Banter, do you have any advice on how to test a transmission to make sure it's functional and working before installing it? Due to the condition of other parts on this vehicle, I'm a little concerned about the health of the transmission.

Make sure it goes into each gear and test that none of them are neutrals. Other than that drain the trans fluid to see if it has a lot of glitter indicating synchro wear. Not many other ways of testing a manual trans without driving it. They either work or don't and it's hard to see if they grind between gears without driving it.

[ImRobBailey]

Yesterday I was on the fence about actually pulling the transmission. I really want to take this donor shell to the scrapyard and get it out of my yard, and I said yesterday "this thing will be out of here by the end of the week." We'll see just how well that goes.

This morning was a fun morning of wrenching though. With the advice of some manuals I found online, I prepped and removed the transmission completely. While reading and investigating last night, I came across this helpful resource: https://www.kolhosniki.ru/ Looks like they have a bunch of Audi/VAG manuals loaded up with diagrams.

Following the technical advice, I started with the pedal assembly. Apparently I didn't get a good look at the mechanism behind the brake pedal. From left to right: Rubber boot, plastic collar, straight, then threaded rod, 18mm nut, 16mm hex shaft. I had been trying to loosen the nut from the threaded shaft, not the nut from the sleeve.


The only thing left holding it to the car was the hydraulic hard line going from the clutch through the firewall. This is located under the brake master cylinder inside the engine bay. Had I known better, I would have disconnected the clutch hardline, and not had nearly so many issues removing the pedal group. As is, I hope the pedal group is still salvageable after all my monkeying around on it. When the instructions say "don't depress the clutch pedal after disconnecting the hydraulic line," they mean it. Otherwise you'll get a nice fist (or face) full of brake fluid/hydraulic juice. The clutch hydraulic hardline runs from the back of the clutch slave cylinder behind the clutch pedal through the firewall, into the tunnel and terminates on the drivers side of the transmission. I could have saved the hardline, but I'd already futzed it up pretty good by yanking on the pedal group, so it got snipped and will be replaced with stainless steel braided lines. You can see the snipped clutch hydraulic line snaking downward:


How many bolts are supposed to hold this transmission to the engine? Is it more than 4? Because this trans only had 4 bolts holding it on. This is the "GBT" version of the 01A transmission:

https://i.imgur.com/q3dEtO6.jpg

I originally anticipated needing to do some fabrication on the convertible for either the propshaft brackets or the transmission brackets. It doesn't look like I'll need to make transmission brackets though, as this transmission is supported by a crossmember that ties into the chassis and the front subframe. It's probably best to have an actual transmission jack to lower the transmission, and I'll likely get one for installation, but this worked for now:


Wiggling up and down, and rolling the jack toward the rear of the car, the transmission came out surprisingly easily:


Then the hard part started. There wasn't enough room at the front of the car to pull out the transmission, so I put it on my "jack board," secured a bolt through some chain on the board, hooked it to a comealong attached to the tow hook of the convertible, and pulled the transmission to the middle of the drive tunnel. It didn't go super smoothly, and fell off the board about halfway through after catching on some heat shielding.






Since it definitely wasn't coming out the back, perhaps the transmission could be coaxed out the side. After a bit of heaving and grunting and shifting it onto cardboard, success:




Here's my pile of parts (left) and side-birthed transmission:


Unfortunately that crack I mentioned earlier took a bit more abuse than I expected, and sheared off fully sometime between separating the trans from the engine and pulling it out:


Here's hoping I haven't ruined this transmission.

[Dr.B6Banter]

Nice work!

There should be way more than just 4 bolts holding the trans on lol. Probably why that mount cracked. As long as it's welded back you should be fine.

[ImRobBailey]

There were a couple things left to tidy up before I scrap the shell, so I took an hour and worked on them today. Cleaned up the carport & shed area and organized tool/part storage. Then I pulled the clutch. I have no idea if it's still any good, or even if it's a good idea to throw a used clutch back on, but I figured the experience couldn't hurt, and I'd have a spare clutch if needed.

clutch side of the flywheel:


Engine side of flywheel:


Pressure plate: (looks a little scorched - maybe 2-3 hotspots?)


Clutch disc: (doesn't look too bad, but I don't know for what to look)


I also wanted to get some pictures of the back end of the crank:




At this point, I'm done with the donor shell. To my knowledge there isn't anything else I need to remove from this car to make the driveline bits work on my car.

If anyone would like anything from this shell, please don't hesitate to reach out! Window glass is good all around, door panels are pretty straight and matched. Hood isn't too messed up. There's an alternator still left on the engine, and the block, rods and pistons. Otherwise, I'm going to send the car to scrap this weekend.

After what feels like forever, I think I've reached the mid-point of this project. Of course, taking things apart is the easy half; putting them back together again so they work is the tricky part. To revisit the list I wrote a while back:

• Remove driveshaft (complete)
• Remove rear subframe (complete)
• Remove fuel tank (complete)
• Remove front axles (1/2 complete) - completely out of donor shell
• Remove transmission (complete, still need to remove passenger side axle)
• Remove clutch and check/replace (complete)
• Remove pedal group (complete)
• Remove handbrake cables (optional) (complete)

Blue Car

• Remove rear subframe
• Remove fuel tank
• Install quattro fuel tank
• Install quattro rear subframe
• -car driveable, fwd only at this point-
• Recode ECU, EPS, ABS for manual transmission
• Remove front axles
• Remove transmission
• Install pilot bearing
• Install clutch
• Install 5sp quattro transmission
• Install front axles
• Install driveshaft
• Install pedal group

[ImRobBailey]

I was just re-reading my own thread, and realized that I'm not finished with the donor shell yet - I still need to pull off the propshaft brackets. Not really sure how to go about that part...drill out spot welds if necessary, borrow a sawzall if it really comes down to it.

One thing I'm really enjoying about writing up a build thread, is that I'm forced to take pictures and document what I'm doing. It makes finding my mistakes and preventing mistakes so much easier.

[ImRobBailey]

This weekend saw some great progress. Tired of the yellow car sitting in my yard, I sent it to the scrapyard:

The flatbed driver was incredibly talented getting the car on the truck:


Sliding the flatbed under the vehicle:


Up and away we go!


Unloading the yellow beast at the scrapyard:


Goodbye forever. Thanks for the parts and $125 in scrap metal.

[Dr.B6Banter]

Kind of sad seeing it like that but at least the parts will live on.

[BumblebVR6]

You didn’t keep the motor, doors, fenders or anything?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[ImRobBailey]

It is kind of sad seeing it like that, but all the desired usable parts were taken. It had passed through several hands before it got to me, so it had been picked pretty clean.

The bottom half of the motor was still there, and the outer door skins, but nothing I could use on my convertible, and it didn't sound like anyone had any interest.

All in all, I feel good service was done to this car in the end.

[Gin+]

Clean doors and fenders are impossible to find around me.

[BumblebVR6]

It is kind of sad seeing it like that, but all the desired usable parts were taken. It had passed through several hands before it got to me, so it had been picked pretty clean.

The bottom half of the motor was still there, and the outer door skins, but nothing I could use on my convertible, and it didn't sound like anyone had any interest.

All in all, I feel good service was done to this car in the end.

Good deal, I need to scrap a shell soon and have been thinking about how to get it out of my driveway. Cutting it up came to mind, but I have casters I can use to roll it out of the garage on and seeing it wasn't too hard for the truck driver to hoist it up, I may do the same. Did you ride with him to the scrap yard? I'm guessing the charge was about the same as you received in scrap for the car?

[ImRobBailey]

Clean doors and fenders are impossible to find around me.

I would have been willing to ship them, though I imagine cost would have been prohibitive.

Did you ride with him to the scrap yard? I'm guessing the charge was about the same as you received in scrap for the car?

I did not ride with him to the scrapyard. Hoping to minimize the driver's time and not wanting to need a ride home, I drove and the driver followed me to the scrapyard. When we arrived at the yard, I parked and filled out some paperwork, then hopped in the cab of the flatbed to drop the car off in the yard. We drove onto a scale, weighed in, then drove into the yard and unloaded the car. When we exited the yard, we were weighed again and I was given a ticket for the difference in weight. Taking that ticket to the cashier, I was paid $0.075 per pound of scrap. The car weighed ~1660lbs, and the scrapyard paid me $125 for the car. Total charge for picking up the car and dropping it at the yard came to $72.

I took apart the donor rear subframe yesterday - shocks, brake calipers & carriers, rotors, and rear axles all came off. I've been researching completing a cv boot service while all the axles are out of the car. Partly just to have confidence knowing it's been done, and mostly because some of the cv joints need a service pretty badly. Looking up cv boot kits, I priced out kits for all 4 axles and came up with ~$220. I then priced out what it would cost just to replace all of the axles...$219. Clear winner there, I guess.

I also dropped the transmission off at a welding shop to have that broken bolt hole welded back together. I picked the transmission up from the shop today, and am getting really close to taking apart the convertible.

I've put together a shopping list of things I'll need to finish this build, and it's coming out to around $1000 to finish what I've started. New clutch hydraulic line, lots of TTY bolts (did you know all of the axle bolts are TTY bolts?), fluids, filters, and there's also a coolant leak somewhere I need to address while I'm in behind the engine.

For the next step, I need to order new axles, axle hardware, rear diff oil, and figure out how to wire up the quattro fuel pump & dual level sending unit.

[ImRobBailey]

Ordered the first batch of parts today. I plan to work from the rear forward, so I ordered new rear axles, brake lines (trying to keep cost down, so rubber for now), and new brake pads. Parts won't arrive for another weekish, so it's a waiting game for now.

[ImRobBailey]

All of the parts are here...except for new subframe mounting bolts, which are spec'd to be replaced...ugh.

I'm going to have time to work on the convertible's rear end this weekend. So I've been looking at the quattro vs fwd fuel tank, and I'll need to replace a breather hose on the quattro tank because I chopped it.

As I've been studying the fuel pump and level sender unit, I wonder if I can just swap the fuel pump from my fwd tank into the quattro tank and not even mess around with hooking up the second fuel level sender...

Perhaps Matt Devo or Old Guy can contribute on the benefits or drawbacks. I have pigtails from the donor harness, but don't really relish pinning into the cluster. On the other hand, if the design of the quattro fuel tank necessitates two fuel level senders, then I'll be forced to wire up the bits from the quattro tank. Thoughts?

[Scott Long]

I like what you're doing but holy shit that's a ton of work. I have found a couple of cheap A4 1.8T convertibles and thought about getting one for a cruiser but I hate the CVT with a passion. FWD doesn't bother me as much as the CVT. At minimum I would like to swap it to a 5-speed. I almost bought a Nogaro blue 3.0 quattro convertible a few years ago but I was on vacation when I saw it and the guy wouldn't hold it for me til I got back. The 3.0 convertibles had quattro. I was planning a 2.7T swap, it would be a fun convertible.

It makes me sad that someone parted out that Imola yellow B6. That car looked solid. Why did he part it out? I would have bought that and swapped in a good engine and kept it on the road. Poor thing didn't deserve to die like that but at least it's parts live on in your project.

[ImRobBailey]

I like what you're doing but holy shit that's a ton of work. I have found a couple of cheap A4 1.8T convertibles and thought about getting one for a cruiser but I hate the CVT with a passion. FWD doesn't bother me as much as the CVT. At minimum I would like to swap it to a 5-speed. I almost bought a Nogaro blue 3.0 quattro convertible a few years ago but I was on vacation when I saw it and the guy wouldn't hold it for me til I got back. The 3.0 convertibles had quattro. I was planning a 2.7T swap, it would be a fun convertible.

It makes me sad that someone parted out that Imola yellow B6. That car looked solid. Why did he part it out? I would have bought that and swapped in a good engine and kept it on the road. Poor thing didn't deserve to die like that but at least it's parts live on in your project.

It is a fair amount of work; I'll admit, I haven't done something like this before, so this is a huge learning experience for me.

As far as the condition of the yellow B6, it may "look solid" from 10' away, but it was a pretty tight pile of trash by the time I received it. From what the seller told me, someone rebuilt the engine, or put in a wrecker engine, and then was never able to get it to run, so parted it out and sold it. From all the research I've done on the VIN and car history, this car was ready to be put to pasture; it had been involved in several collisions, rode around on cut springs, and was a mismash of half-broken parts by the time I picked it up. I've extracted the driveline, and you're right - it'll live on in my convertible awd mt project.

On to the important updates:
All of the parts I ordered arrived, and wouldn't you know it, some dumbass ordered the CV axle flange bolts. Audi switched bolt sizes in the middle of the 2003 model year, and I had two options to choose from, and of course I chose poorly. Fortunately a quick phone call to ECStuning got a return and re-order worked out. Somehow they convinced me to buy more than $50 worth of hardware to escape paying for shipping. Apparently the subframe mounting bolts are one-use bolts advised to be replaced, so I added them to my order and hopefully my re-order will be here by the end of the week.

Since Audi changed the bolts, they may have changed the CV axles as well, so I test fit the axles and they appear to mount and accommodate the old bolts.

Lastly, owning up to my shame: my wife and I took the convertible to brunch at a friends' house this weekend since the weather was gorgeous. You may recall that to complete this swap, I'll need to remove the fwd fuel tank and replace it with a awd fuel tank. So I've been keeping the fuel level low so I won't have to extract the extra fuel when I drop the fuel tank. Welp, I let it get a little too low and we ended up running out of fuel a couple miles from our friends' house. Fortunately they were willing to swing by with a gas can so we could get home. Perhaps when I end up dropping the fuel tank, I'll just use the fuel pump to extract most of the fuel from the tank and into storage, and then drop the tank. Fortunately my wife is pretty forgiving, and we were making jokes about it by the end of the day. Big oops.

[ImRobBailey]

Phew, it's been over a month without any progress while I fought with ECStuning to get the correct parts. Admittedly, I ordered the wrong rear axle bolt kit; apparently halfway through 2003, Audi decided to change the type of bolt that holds the cv axle to the rear diff flange. After looking hard at the two options, of course I chose...poorly. I called ECS support, and the sales rep said he'd get me the right parts, and did I want to order anything else to bring the total over $50 for free shipping? I realized the subframe mounting bolts are intended to be one-time use bolts, so I added on front and rear subframe bolts, and the sales rep added on two additional subframe bolts that I didn't need. When I received the shipment, he'd only ordered me one axle kit instead of the two I needed. So I called customer support again and a support gal helped me get an additional axle bolt kit, and refunded me the price of the extra subframe bolts I was sent. Then I waited, and waited, and waited. Called ECS support again, who said UPS had picked up the shipment. So I called UPS, who said ECS still needed to give them the shipment. Finally, after two weeks and many frustrating phone calls, the axle bolt kit showed up on my doorstep. Sheesh; what an ordeal.

So yesterday while it rained, I installed new axles in the rear subframe. While I pulled the axles from the donor car, most of the CV boots were either split or rotten, and it was more cost-efficient to buy aftermarket axles than re-boot all four axles. That said, comparing the OEM axle to the aftermarket axle, the aftermarket axle is notably heavier, though the shaft is slightly thinner. We'll see how long these aftermarket axles last, and in the meantime I'll be looking for deals on CV rebuild kits.