About a year ago I promised to put together a document for doing the transmission fluid change. I finally got around to finishing it as I am at the end of my water pump & accessory belt R&R and waiting on some O rings to arrive to put it all back together.
This was quite the project with so much crap to move out of the way to get to the water pump. I used a engine hoist to hold the lock carrier with radiator/condenser attached and the upper hose on the passenger side disconnected (I did this from the hard pipe side and removed the small hose from the plastic fitting near the radiator since the plastic fitting was stuck on and I didn’t want to risk breaking either the pipe or the radiator fitting. At 180K miles, the hoses were pretty stuck on and as a result I have decided I am going to get 2 new tool sets: hose removal picks and hose clamp pliers. The locations of these hoses made it difficult to get away with my standard pliers and groove joint pliers to do the job. One technique I have employed for the hoses is to grab them with regular pliers firmly, but not too hard and twist moving them up and down the section of hose that is attached trying to break the seal. That along with a bent screw driver to wiggle between the hose and the fitting worked OK but required way too much effort. Also be careful of the pipes on the oil cooler. I bent one removing the coolant line, but fortunately was able to use a socket to get it back in round.
Also fortunately, the only oil on the bottom of the engine was from the water pump, and it seemed to be more related to the O ring that the pump seals with than anything else, but I bought the kit from Audi, so the pump, housing and thermostat will all be refreshed. Have to wait until Friday for the O rings.
During this same time I pulled the front suspension apart to do the upper control arm bushings and the inner & outer tie rods. While doing this I found 2 unexpected issues: Inner CV boot on the passenger side and the speed sensor had backed out a bit on that same side. A little backstory: When I did the inner CV boot on the driver’s side (why do inner boots go on these cars?) I hacked up the wheel bearing (though I didn’t know it at the time) and to make a long story short I took it to the dealer and spent $400 R&Ring the bearing to get the EPC/ABS Parking Brake warnings to go away (caused by bad speed inputs). Well that same code came back and I assumed same side. So I swapped front to rear with no solution. I decided to buy the wiring harness and R&R that when I did the suspension work. Well, I think I found the problem on the other side with the loose sensor. We’ll see when I get it back together.
Anyway, I have a PDF of the ATF procedure. I tried to attach it here but it said upload was full. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get you the doc, let me know.
Ed