Man Maths

Just before the twins were born in 2015, I decided that we needed a spare family car – we had an one, but it would be useful to have 2 cars capable having kids in the back. A bit of googling told me that the standard Audi A6 isofix bars bolted straight in to the back of the RS6. And I am a bit of a petrolhead – and the cars were cheap! A Plan started to come together…..

Lots of looking at the RS6s for sale at the time – many clearly in very poor condition, with some being crazy money. Eventually I came across this one:

What stood out about this one was that it seemed relatively decent and untouched, but even better, was black but didn’t have the white leather interior. I don’t like white leather – instead, this one had the black alcantara with aluminium trim interior, which is a rarer combo and I think it really works! So a few thousand £ later and the learning journey started. I’d read all about the weaknesses of these cars and that all the solutions are – but I figured it wouldn’t need ALL of them doing – would it?

Engine Out – Part 1

Eventually I found the torque converter wasn’t locking up correctly, despite the gearchanges still being silky smooth. I did a gearbox service with new oil and filters – the oil came out looking manky. The TC valiantly tried to lock up, but just couldn’t manage it.

Audi claim these gearboxes are sealed for life, but ZF themselves make a service kit for them and it’s well known that an occasional gearbox oil change is required to make the gearboxes last – what Audi really mean is they’re sealed until the warranty expires. So I bit the bullet and removed the engine to do the torque converter and gearbox – for the first time. I’ve built or rebuilt loads of things before – but never in what I’d call “modern generation” cars. What I mean is in a car where everything is designed by CAD and crammed in, but gives no acknowledgement of needing to service things! It is a complex and tight fit in there. But we got there in the end and while it’s a lot of work, it’s actually not hard as long as you’re patient and methodical

That job all went OK – you can see the new gearbox in the pic above – and bolted it all back together. The car ran well – but now it was loosing a little coolant! This was the moment where I learnt that the list of things to look for on a C5 RS6 are not “maybe” things – they will happen, it’s just a question of when. The little plastic pipe that connects the oil cooler to the engine block had fractured – the notorious “bufkin” pipe. So it was time to pull the engine again! Argh!

Engine Out – Part 2

This time, I decided “lesson learnt” and went in to it much more fully, including not just replacing the bufkin pipe with the lovely alloy machined one you can get, but replacement intercoolers (Audi ones always leak, even when new), shortening one of the hard cooling pipes that prevents you from removing the RHS rocker cover unless you remove the engine (what moron designed that!)

Replaced the DRC entire DRC setup (another when, not “if” thing that fails) with Koni shocks – and had all the steel suspension arms and springs powdercoated too:

At the same time, also had the turbos rebuilt with new cartridges by Owen Developments. Stock – other than upgrading the thrust bearings in the turbos to 360 degree ones for better longevity. Also used the opportunity to replace the plastic shoes on the cam adjusters – they are known to wear at about the 80K mark and if they disintegrate, it causes a right mess.

I’ve sort of lost track of everything I did to it – it’s all noted down in a spreadsheet somewhere – but I also tidied up the engine bay and replaced the inlet hoses (that always collapse) with some nice silicone ones. I think it looks smart – I’ve actually replaced the black inlet ducts with carbon ones that match the air filter covers now – they are lovely.

Brakes

At some point, I decided to redo all the brakes. New rear calipers are easy to source, but the fronts are a bit more special – so I had them rebuilt. With hindsight, I think I could have saved myself a chunk of money by doing it myself, but the convenience of having someone else do it was appreciated:

I think the calipers came out OK, although I think I overpaid:

You can see I both powdercoated the backplates at the same time, and also replaced the lower wishbones with new:

That Plastic Bit

There’s a really nasty plastic air duct at the front of the cars, that channels air through the oil coolers. It’s simultaneously floppy and yet also brittle – and annoyed me every time I went near it. So I decided to make a new one out of some nice NS4. The hateful plastic bit:

Starting to make a new kit of ali parts:

Assembled on the workbench with the old bit behind:

And on the car. I think it came out OK:

Today

That’re pretty much where it is today. All the stuff that they need doing – is now done, and I can by and large enjoy the car. Currently waiting on some new wing mirror glass to arrive and is due a bit of a service – but the effort above was all worth it and the car all just works now.