I changed the driver side spark plugs and coil packs last night, it was very straightforward. The only extra step was to unscrew the power-steering reservoir and move it to the side so I could reach cyl 9 & 10.
I’m going to do the passenger side tonight. But I’m not too sure about the moving coolant reservoir - is there a trick to getting that out of the way without losing the coolant? If anyone has photos or a link, that would be appreciated.
Having worked on my coolant tank 3 times now, I can tell you it’s very difficult to move it much without pulling it out completely. If you remove the airbox, it give you more wiggle room. It’s only held on by the 2 torx screws on top, then there is the feeder hose going into it (be VERY careful with that, the Y connector breaks extremely easily). The bottom hose is the more difficult one, it’s not very long so it doesn’t really give you any play to move the tank around unless you disconnect it, dumping coolant. I found there was no need to remove the sensor wire, it was plenty long.
I siphoned the coolant out of my tank with a piece of tubing I had laying around, only took a minute or two. That’s the way I would go.
http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/354041629.jpg
Thats the Y piece that brakes so easy. One of the best ways I have seen to deal with the coolant tank. is to unscrew the coolant tank and rotate it so it sits flush with the fender. So your basically just turning the tank so it goes from front to back vs side to side. That gives you plently of room to work. Just take care to hold the tank up higher so you dont get any coolant leaking out
Before I forget also re check your intake manifold bolts to make sure none of them have backed out. Anytime you pull the intake manifold its good to go back after a few heat cycles to re tq the bolts down.
Thanks for the tips and the pic. I’m going to have to make sure I have the right tools to deal with the coolant tank first. Maybe some g13 just in case.
Should just be a Torx T25 bit, an extension helps too. And a pair of pliers for if you do end up disconnecting a hose.
I’ve removed the airbox, but I can’t get the half-oval connector off. what’s the trick to disconnect it without breaking?
Can you post a picture? I’m not sure what connector you’re referring to
It was the connector to the air box. But I just “forced” it and it came out without breaking.
But I got them all replaced on the passenger side using the “rotate the coolant tank clockwise” method. No coolant spills.
http://i.imgur.com/GfNxyCW.jpg
It all went smoothly except for the air box connector - and one other strange issue. Somehow, I wasn’t able to push the coil pack on cyl 5 completely in (the hardest to reach). After a long time struggling, I decided to take the plug out and start again. It turned out there was a black rubber “tube” that was pushed onto the white part of the plug.
http://i.imgur.com/2P1WwTT.jpg
I have no idea where that came from, but my guess is that it was on the cheap spark plug socket I was using - maybe to grip the plug when you remove it from the tube?
Regardless, I wasted 1+ hrs on those 2 issues. The rest went smoothly.
However, I noticed I had a cracked retaining clip on the square connector that goes into the hose by the throttle body. Is that going to be a problem?
Thread resurrection time:
Clarification: When doing V10 spark plugs, you need to remove the air box and coolant reservoir to get to the rear plug, correct? I search on AZ and they had a link to an rs6 technical bulletin for plug replacement, which called for hoisting the engine up a bit for clearance to get the rear coil pack tubes to clear the wheel well. Is this the case? Seems that the rs6 document is the only DIY instruction I could find.
Thanks for any clairification.
nope, no engine hoisting required. just a little bit of fussing from the coil pack connector, as they’re a unit of 5 and come out together :
just remove the airbox and throttle body hoses, relocate the coolant reservoir, then you can remove the coil pack connector, coil packs, and extract the spark plugs. i picked up a coil pack remover tool from ECS and it made life much easier. driver’s side is more of a pain than the passenger side IMO.