Bringing back to life an 18 year old Audi A8 D2 part 5

In this post I'll cover refurb of the front and rear suspension.

Front:

Front subframe has been preserved in near perfect condition as the 2.8 leaks oil everywhere which eventually ends up on the subframe, bushes were also OK so i didn't touch them.

All these front suspension parts came from Autodoc.

Luckily all the parts came with bolts:

Pinch bolts were a pain as usual:

New control arms fitted:

Driver side front output shaft was leaking:

Bottom view:

Shaft and seal out, new seal in:

Pressed in with a special made tool:

Torn CV boot replaced:

Rear suspension.

This is what it looked like beforeL

Super rusty subframe:

Super rusty fuel tank straps, the cross bar was just basically rust holding onto itself:

Exhaust clamps have seen better days too:

Camber bolts (lol):

Exhaust heat shields mangled too:

Second hand Subframe purchased for £50:

Powdercoated, and then painted with hammerite and sparyed inside with cavity wax:

Everything covered in as much of sticky goo as possible:

Bush holes sanded down back to bare metal:

New heat shield fitted:

Purchased a spare set of fuel tank brackets to recreate in stainless steel:

Shaping in progress, there were made by my brother for me:

Almost there:

Cross bar also recreated:

Each straps was then lined with proper C channel rubber:

At this point I've taken the car to the D2 doctor to complete the whole suspension refurb over the weekend.. which turned out to be quite ambitious but just about doable.

Car on the lift:

Rear suspension and exhaust off:

Crusty Subframe off:

Lots more room for activities:

Old straps removed:

New brackets fitted, now its safe to fill the tank with 90 of fuel:

New hand brake brackets were made out of stainless steel also:

Mangled heat shield removed and replaced:

Repair washers & rivnuts used to fix broken off studs:

New subframe on the pallet getting ready to be loaded with new parts:

New D3 bushes getting pressed in:

Some supplies to keep the momentum going:

Diff carier's new bushes:

Rear control arms getting new bushes too:

Control arms back on the subframe:

Diff and shafts back in too:

Subframe bushes had locating washers 3d printed so they go in straight and quare:

Subframe back in:

Shot of all new bolts before they rust:

Rusty exhaust hanger replaced with brand new one:

Exhaust back in, secured with new clamps:

Broken springs replaced with brand new ones from Audi tradition, £180 a piece - ouch!

After putting the car back together it went straight in for an alignment:

...and a wash to finish it off:

Thanks to Michaela at D2 doctor for helping me out - https://www.facebook.com/D2Doctor

UPDATE

2 years on, the rear upper control arm bushes became available on Autodoc, so i had an old pair of rear upper control arms vapor blasted and and bushes pressed in:

Control arms before:

And after:

The labour for pressing in and blasting was £144, new bushes cost around £50, all together this is still less than half price of 2 new control arms which aren't in production now anyway:

New bushes can be had from autodoc, you will need 4 outer bushes, and 2 middle bushes.

Middle bush - OE 4D0505203G — VAG
https://www.autodoc.co.uk/febest/14133184

Outer bushes - OE 4D0505203E — VAG
https://www.autodoc.co.uk/febest/14631734

Control arm now fitted:

In the pic above you can also see shiny new red struts. These were taken from a 90k 2.8, they were stripped of paint, painted again, some parts such as bump stops and top nuts replaced and also clear heat shrink was applied as an experiment to see how well it slows down, or aids corrosion.

First off, i stripped the struts and created a jig filled with evaporust to strip rust and paint:

The strut eater 500:

This was made out of some soil pipe and gutter components, and scrap pieces of plywood. I bought 5L of Evaporust, but only ~2.5l was needed to fully submerge the struts: