As I undertake various maintenance repairs to my '02 S6, I am finding more and more little differences between each that have necessitated more time to do the same repair than the RS6. Yes believe it or not - a car that takes more time to repair than the RS6....
Example - T-stat. Have replaced this item in excess of a half a dozen times across three different cars and it's straight forward. Aside from having to remove the Y-pipe in order to remove the inspection covers, pretty straight forward. The S6 doesn't have the Y-pipe to remove, but it has a mechanical fan to remove....
Couldn’t get the fan clutch off the shaft because it required more torque to rotate a seized bolt than the tension of a belt or clamp could provide in situ. I resigned myself to removing the bracket as an assembly, so that I could clamp in vice and remove out of the car. Problem was – bolt to remove was just far enough behind the pulley that you couldn’t put a socket and ratchet on it…. I ended up using a sawsall to cut the clutch assemble off the end of the shaft, and then rounding off the corners of the remaining nut housing so that I could slide the pulley over top and off. I was then able to access the bolt and remove the bracket. A large 1 ¼” wrench with an interlocked 1 1/8” and 200+ on the end final cracked the nut and it spun off by and afterwards….
ALL to get to a thermostat…..
I also noticed the belt wasn't tracking correctly and was offset a nominal 1/8". Turns out to be the incorrect pulley. The previous owner(s) had mounted the incorrect idler pulley. There has ever been a requirement or a large triple square wrench to remove any parts on the engine, which should have been the first clue. Pulley was shimmed with a trio of washers to get proper clearance from engine block. gasp Proper part now installed.
Reply With Quote