My new C5 S6 Avant - V8 family car

Turns out with a little research these hella 004 538 actuators might not be so hard to get hold of. They're on the S6/A6 S8/A8 V8s obviously, also the VW Toraug 4.8s, and going more exotic on a lamborghini gallardo:



And less exotic on jaguars as part of the cruise control



And even less exotic on landrover discovery cruise control

 
I got my actuator through, £15 delivered :) and came with a land rover cruise control cable attached :lmao:



And it is indeed the very same part number

 
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I've just picked up an C5 S6 Avant with 7 seats from factory. Googling brought me here and what a great read this is.

Any updates mate?
 
Glad you enjoyed it. No real updates, nothings fell off, just been enjoying it myself. I've got some front top mounts to fit soon as they're squeaking away so will update when I've done that.
 
I've had an annoying squeak coming from the drivers side front for a while, but it's got so loud you can hear it constantly even with the windows closed.

I had a look and pretty sure I narrowed it down to the top mounts, I've replaced everyone else so that's all that's left.

Got onto AllGermanParts and got a couple of top mounts delivered




So after a nice long break (hadn't even opened the doors for a few months) got down the unit



Last time I took the legs off to do the top arms it took a whole day EACH SIDE to get off thanks to the pinch bolts. But this time it was literally 10mins each side, everything came off like it was brand new





Strippy strippy



The old top mount was cracked all the way round



Took the top mount off and it actually came apart in my hands, the inner and outer were actually separated and that what was squeaking





So fitted the new one and got it all back on within half an hour all in :)






Got the other side off in record time



This side was cracked so wouldn't be long till it let go



And back on



Done up in the ride height position.

All squeaks now gone :) :)
 
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It is now finally driving without any knocks or rattles, since the last 4wheel alignment I have hit a pot hole and smashed a wheel, replaced all 4 top arms, 2 lower arms, arb links, top mounts, all 4 rear bushes and had the whole subframe and front end suspension mounts off. So I thought I'd get another one done.

The front wheels are super tight to the arch I wasn't sure if he'd get the clamps in so I took the 19s incase





But luckily he could just squeeze them on the 20s



Also got the aircon done while I was there



It wasn't too far out to be honest, but does drive better now :) nothing we can do about the camber but got it evem. the aircon isn't fantastic, but it's definitely cooling the air coming in now.





Was also greeted by this monstrosity the other morning! Yuk!



 
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So no update of late quite simply because nothing broken or fallen off :)

This happened the other day though :(



But still going strong :) the lpg has been faultless and still delivering a healthy 11mpg :lmao:

Something I'd noticed a while ago was that my front discs were starting to crack on the front, the the front pads were getting low so I thought it was time for renewal.



So after a long departure for me and the car we went down to the unit



And visited the tired stoppers



The discs are 2006 mercedes ML500 350x32mm whoppers (not the usual ml55 345mm the vw boys use due to the wide body offset of the S6) and porsche cayenne 17z pads to go in my 18z calipers.







And managed to find a genuine vw fitting kit on eBay half price (they put these calipers on the tourag too)



Strippy strippy



And on





According to the manufacturers specs the S6 centrebore is 68mm and the Mercedes is 67mm so thought I was going to have to bore it out, but they went straight on.



And the other side too









After a little bed in its back to doing endo's again, these brakes are fantastic and it's stops the 2ton car on a button :)

I had a real bad problem with brake dust with the old setup (not sure on pad make) but these ferodo premier seem alot better.

Something else that bad been bothering me (and letting the car down) was the front grills I'd sprayed the chrome black was not stonechipped to **** and just looked tatty.





So thought I'd approach it from a different angle and gorgeous some cheap vynal wrap off ebay

Whipped the grilles and gave it a bash. Had never used any kind of wrap before





And it came out pretty ****** good! Can't belive how flexable and manipulative the wrap is with a bit of heat. You could nearly do a sphere!





Back together and on







Will think about doing the trims under the lights too but will have to do them in situ and trim around.

With that success I thought I'd try the bottom of the rear dog leg too, also peppered to ****



****** awesome



And the other side too



Bit of heat as it went



And done



I'll see how it holds up to the stonechipped and pressure washer and if it's OK I'll probably replace the 15 year old audi ones too



So first venture into wrapping and I'm very impressed! Tidied it up nicely again

 
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Awesome thread.. I had a S6 back in the day.. but it looks rubbish in comparison to yours.. Epic build thread..
 
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so still no updates for a while now, nothings broken or fell off, just been enjoying cruising :)

so heres an overview of the last few months
had to get two tyres for the front, best part of £400 there, phew! but they are fantastic tyres :cool:



gave the wheels a good clean up too before fitting



also had a cv boot go so stuck a new one of them on





and some new wipers in one of the euro car parts sales



the climate control unit started getting a bit temperamental, some of the buttons didn't work and the aircon was a bit intermittent despite being full, the unit wouldn't communicate with vagcom either. and it turns out the S6 has a bit of a rarer unit with auto recirculation button, not comparable with the the normal A6 units :rolleyes: after seeing ones for £100plus for auto recirc ones with heated seats, I finally found this one for £30



you have to take the head unit and bits off to get to the aircon unit





but now everything works :) and the aircon is better than its ever been so there was deffo something wrong with that controller
and now communicates with vagcom too, it had saved on it all the codes from what ever car it came from:



I think he had some issues :lol: but all cleared and works perfectly in mine :)
other than that its all been working fine, been to a couple of shows and events in it. still shines up well. its 15 years old next month!!







inches count ;)



went to local top speed run at an air base, would have loved to run but it was £150 to enter! most cars were over £100k so it didn't bother them :lol:











I've started a little electronics project on it ive been searching part numbers and wiring diagrams, (on a very strict budget hence taking some time) not seen it done here on a C5, only one post in Poland. will fill in the story when I get all the bits and start on it ;)



 
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car has been doing great, clocking up the family miles.



i got a new battery as last year it was a bit touch and go when it got really cold, and this year when I've been doing a lot of vagcom coding the battery has dies a few times.
more pokier than the old one too.



old one out



new one in



turns over live a jet engine now, the old one was on its last legs.

the other thing I did was bought an interior led kit. front courtesy, rear courtesy, front maps, rear maps, front vanity, front footwells, door puddle lamps and boot.



So the old brown



you can see the difference



it's like an x-ray machine in there at night now



And all was going so well untill last night and the pas rack shat itself :(



 
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Super Ron said:
It is now finally driving without any knocks or rattles, since the last 4wheel alignment I have hit a pot hole and smashed a wheel, replaced all 4 top arms, 2 lower arms, arb links, top mounts, all 4 rear bushes and had the whole subframe and front end suspension mounts off. So I thought I'd get another one done.

The front wheels are super tight to the arch I wasn't sure if he'd get the clamps in so I took the 19s incase





But luckily he could just squeeze them on the 20s



Also got the aircon done while I was there



It wasn't too far out to be honest, but does drive better now :) nothing we can do about the camber but got it evem. the aircon isn't fantastic, but it's definitely cooling the air coming in now.





Was also greeted by this monstrosity the other morning! Yuk!



Click to expand...

That's some size of choc ice. Also just read latest post from OP and that's a fair bit of a job to get the rack out of those if I'm not mistaken. Nice car by the way. Love the wide bodies but could never have one as me and autos don't go together.
 
Last edited:
so I knew the racks were a bit if a pain, more so on the V8s with an exhaust each side and a quattro gearbox the size of a small horse, but what a ******* it was!


It hadn't been leaking for a long time (unless it had been filling the track rods boot up?) but all of a sudden one day driving the power steering pump got noisey and got out to check the level and found this





So got the car in the unit



And the 15 mile drive home and to the unit it had got a whole lot worse!






There aren't really that many bolts to hold the rack on, just some are impossible to get to.

the column was pretty easy. just one bolt





There a couple of bolts under the battery so all that bad to come out, but the rest are in here, above the downpipes and gearbox.





resorted to taking the whole corner off to gain a few mms more access



But 4 hours later and it's off!!



cross referenced the part numbers and found the one I needed, surprising I found I haven't got servotronic steering, which the Internet suggests the S6 should have.



Looks like they rebuild genuine racks as it had all the audi castings on it and part numbers the same as mine



refitting was a little trickier as everything just kinds of falls out when removal. I had to get a mate on the passenger side to look through the width of the car to direct me from the drivers side. I couldn't see a thing, he was directing was up a bit, left a bit, back a bit, up a bit :lmao:





And the same with the hose clamps, I was right underneith with zero visibility and he was up a bit, left a bit, rotate a bit :lmao:



filled it back up with genuine goodness



And the new one was all in and bled up, no leaks :)



I found quite a selection of parts and bolts that had fell down over the years and we're sitting around the steering rack and on top of the gearbox :lol:



And then back on with the corner and down on the ground done!!



refitting took about 6 hours. so 10 hours all in to remove and replace a steering rack, what a job!

on the plus side it turns out my old rack did have a bit of play in it which I'd never noticed. it's so much tighter and more precise now.
 
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everything's sweet with the new rack, so it was time for the clean up, everything was covered in power steering fluid, everything in the offside front arch, wheel, brakes, gearbox, downpipe, everything!

so got it up in the air outside







Got some degrease in there and something a bit tamer for the wheels





The wheels had lost their shine with all the wheel acid washed lately and gone a bit dull



So went over them again with this, great stuff, only takes a drop for a whole wheel



much better, alot brighter in real life



All done:)







 
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All is going well :)

With all this dirty weather over Christmas I was using my rear window squirter more, and I'd noticed that the boot interior trim was getting wet. A common problem on these Audi and VW's is the rear window squirter goes through the spindle of the wiper arm, and they seize up and the squirter starts rotating with the arm and the washer pipe fatigues and eventually breaks.



luckily VW make a rebuild kit so you don't have to buy a whole unit



so stripped it down



quite obviously found why it was filling my boot up. old vs new



and back together good as new



also had to get a pair of tyres for the rear, supersports again :)

 
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The rack looked like a nightmare of a job. Imagine having to pay garage labour on top of the cost of the rack.
 
audi upgrades
audi upgrades
There's millions of VAG 955711 rear wiper motors would there be any actual difference if one started 8L0 and another 1J9 ?

Some are listed as suiting A3 , A4 , A6 , Q5 and Q7 .
 
8L0955711B definitely fits an 8L A3 S3 too so probably all 8L .

I'm sure with digging a better value quality solution could be found .

Yeah seen those pattern parts , starting from £34 .
 
My dad's just done the same repair on his 2003 passat and it was the same 8L0955711b part number. usually the letters are quite important. but I didn't find anything suitable genuine for anywhere near £53 otherwise I wouldn't have bothered with a rebuild.
 
Strangely I have a 2003 Passat estate and replaced the crap oem Valeo with this Bosch which was £52 at the time now it's sub £50 .

28788fc7-879a-40e6-96d5-757df687d9d9_zpsbbf64104.jpg


http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/like/170770421125


Seems that it's very much universal as Passat rear wiper motors have also been replaced with Audi A4 and Golf Mk4 955711 part numbers .
 
If that one is for a Passat then it will fit the S6 too as mine and my dad's were identical factory part numbers.

still, saved myself £9 anyway :laughing:
 
another year passed, time for another service and MOT. My service light has just popped on this week so must be 10kmiles which is alot for me!

got it up on the ramp for a checkover



All nice and dry underneith. no leaks



dropped the oil



And got the new stuff



my headlights have got painfully dim lately, so got some new xenon bulbs, went for 6k over the standard 4.3k like the newer audi's. Nice and white



The other problem was the exhaust was blowing like a mofo from this join where the butchered decats meet the rs6 system



So I dropped the system down on a transmission Jack



And welded all the way round making the reduces part of the decats



There were two big cracks in the factory audi rs6 system too



And left the join between the reducer and the rs6 system as removeable, the join there was nice and tight and no leaks



All complelty sealed now :) it's noticeably quieter in the car now, it was leaking right under the front seats so was firing noise straight up to the driver.

the only thing I noticed was the rear brakes are starting to get low so perfect time for an upgrade to try and fill the wheels and match the front. turns out RS6 rears are a no go, anyone know anything else that will work on the rear?

ready for the mot next week :)
 
Flew through the mot no problems! :)



again the emissions were fantastic. bare in mind it's had all 4 cats removed and got an oversize exhaust system and this was the results



with alot of caculations and research ive sussed the rear braked up grade, got some 335mm 6.0 W12 discs on their way :)
 
After a bit of research I've sussed the rear brake upgrade.

I found an American company that makes a brake upgrade for the C5 S6 using A8 310mm discs and standard calipers spaced out.

Apikol C5 V8 Rear Brake Upgrade, 310mm (S6 & A6 4.2) (WITH ROTORS)





Which got me thinking what else is possible, if I go to the effort of making the brackets I might as well get the most of it. I don't want to get involved in swapping callipers, this is more of a cosmetic upgrade than anything, the braking force is more than substantial enough already.
The spec of my current rear discs are 269x22mm with and offset of 53.9mm and a centre bore of 68mm



To keep the standard callipers I need to find replacement discs that are also 22mm wide and a centre bore of 68mm to fit the hub. and a decent offset to make the bracket fabrication easier. The same offset as my standard discs would make it very difficult to make brackets. Luckily The widebody track of the S6 is made up in wide wheel bearings. It seems the callipers are still in the place as a standard A6 in relation to the centre of the car, they just make the bell of the disc deeper on the S6 to reach the caliper from the extended wheel bearings. so putting standard track discs on would give loads of room for a bracket like the Apikol ones above.
Which led me to these. Audi A8 6.0 W12 335m rear discs



Perfect! The difference in offset is 11.5mm which means I can use a flat piece of 12mm plate (floating calliper will easily allow 0.5mm), and extend the holes out 33mm. 335-269=66mm bigger. Halved. So the brackets are going to be very simple :)

So got onto Mtec where I got the front discs from and ordered some W12 rear discs drilled to match the fronts. They arrived today and they are monsters :lmao:







Sometimes the problem with using standard callipers on oversized discs is the pad only touches the outside of the disc and theres a massive untouched inside edge untouched. I looked at the spec on the w12 rear pads and although they are a lot longer, they are only a 6mm deeper than the standard S6 pads. Meaning the standard callipers are going to sweep much the same as the W12 would.





onto the fabrication..............................
 
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Cool stuff MTEC are a good company and local to me, well not down the street but Northen Ireland anyway and who I'll be using next for my B5 S4 brake set up.
 
So went and tried on the discs to double check the measurements before I make up the brackets and came across a ******! (not with my design, just with the car)

the standard 269mm rears



Strippy strippy



269mm vs 335mm




perfect offset for this



clears the rear dust Shields



The plan was to fit the new pads, place the caliper on and pull the handbrake up soi could check the measurements.

but tried to wing the caliper back and both sides are completly sieezed solid :( they still work perfectly and both the rear brakes and handbrake were perfect for the mot, but the adjusting rackets have sieezed rock solid!



Then I noticed one side was missing its dust seal completly (that's not leaking, that was some wd40)



I just can't get rge buggers to wind back in. had a quick look for new calipers, eurocarparts = £188 each! GSF = £250 EACH!! How sucessfull have people been rebuilding these?
 
Got a set of good used ones off of ebay through s particular breaker. Not sure if I'm allowed to state their business name. Cost was £60.
 
I looked into rebuild kits but they're more for sieezed pistons than handbrake adjusters, so wouldn't help me. I did some part number research and found some unbranded calipers for £85-100, but quality unsured.

then I got a GSF email yesterday



followed by this



So looked again at their calipers with were £248 each!! but it turned out £66 of that was a surcharge included. then with all the discounts it brought them down to a about £70 plus vat. much more reasonable

so went shopping



Looks like they are remanufactured genuine items



with the correct 43mm pistons



Got some black caliper paint on the way then the big brake build can continue :)
 
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got some caliper paint through yesterday so masked them up and blacked





And ready



Had some time today so flew down the unit and whipped the wheels off



full strip down this time including caliper



new calipers and pads came with all new hardware too



I'd drawn round the carrier so I knew what shape needed to clear the hub



And proceeded from CAD to, er, WAD! used some 10mm ply with a few washers to check if my theory would work.





And tried it on







discs clear the dust Shields no problem at the bottom



But a bit tight at the top so might take them off



caliper and carrier sit exactly as they did with the standard sized S6 discs



The only slight bummer is the 6.0 W12 A8 pads are 6mm deeper than the S6's, which I knew but wasn't sure where abouts it would go. it turns out it's not quite going to cover the inner drilled holes which might look a bit wierd, it wouldn't be noticeable on a standard plain disc. The pads to the outside of the discs sit perfectly though, so it's only a cosmetic problem they will work fine.



they do look pretty ****** bad *** :cool:



still small behind the 20s though :lmao:



So got the other caliper on and put all the old stiff back together, with the old pads back in so the new ones are nice and fresh for the new discs





Got my assistant out to bleed up the brakes



pumped a litre through as it was pretty grim co.ing out at first



The other thing I found was that the handbrake cable is nackered on the passenger side, it's rubbed through on the exhaust and is all muller'd and won't release properly. doesn't look like ECP or GSF do them so will have to look elsewhere.

oh and the bargain 52% I got off the calipers has been trumped, typical lol



I've got a mate in a machine shop who's gonna stamp out the 12mm plate for the adapters to save me hours with a grinder. then should just be a bolt on job :)
 
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