Time for some love: 1993 URS4 Avant

[yaz321]

One of those long time lurkers who's finally decided to start a thread as the URS4/6 content seems to be well received here. The forum has a wealth of useful information and helpful members I thought it might be worth giving something back (if at all) and maybe relieving Tractor Dave of all the questions I've fired his way up until this point (much appreciated).

Some of you may recognise the car, I've owned it for 4 (almost 5!) years now and up until this point had done the odd upgrade here and there, learning best practice as I go, on top of regular servicing but hadn't embarked on a job as deep as this as I was busy driving and enjoying the thing.

So, here's a thread on what has begun as a rear-end refresh. We'll see where we end up...

[yaz321]

The day I picked it up, formerly L374 CPH.

[yaz321]

This was one of the reasons for me pulling my finger out and getting on with the work.
An MOT failure on a collapsed section of the rear pass. side sill. The sill had been damaged from incorrect jacking (so I was told) in a previous life and apparently moisture, dirt, road grime and the rest was finding its way in over the years.
I took the car to Ashley Grant in Banbury (thanks Tractor Dave for the recommendation) and this is the only picture I have - it didn't look great.
Solid now.

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[yaz321]

And so it began,

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Pretty much all rotten apart from the brake hoses and rear brake discs which were fairly recent jobs, looking forward to whats to greet me from behind those wheel arch liners. Springs don't look too bad either but I've got replacements for those already.

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Managed to get the rear down in as large an assembly as possible, I think all that was left on the car was the shocks

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Lovely

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There was some horrible clunking coming from the rear end, was told it was the rear top mounts which are NLA but my suspicions are with the those upper arms or even the shocks

[K Simmonds]

Nice project, I’m probably going upset some people saying that C4 S4&6’s are the best all round drivers car that Audi has ever made, that’s my personal opinion and I’ve owned an S2 as well as various other older Audi’s and currently have an RS2. The C4’s are so comfortable and effortless to drive plus the build quality is excellent and they’re not a great deal heavier than an S2 Avant.

I’m not lucky enough to own one myself but do have the next best thing which is the 2.8 V6 Avant quattro, I got lucky and picked up a really tidy, low milage car with a very comprehensive service history for £500 in 2017 as it needed a bit of mechanical work. It even shares an owners handbook with the early S4, I’ve upgraded mine with various parts from a late model 30V car including factory sports suspension and a leather interior from a URS6.

I’ve also broken a couple of C4 saloons so know my way around that platform pretty well.

[yaz321]

Thanks Kit, I'd have to agree with you but then again I might be biased. I haven't driven any of the other hot Audi's from this era but I think plenty of enthusiasts have similar things to say. It's an outstanding motorway mile muncher, helps too when you've got a few extra ponies...

The front leather door cards I bought from you are in the car - still on the lookout for some rears - and the trusty dewalt impact driver you sent has helped immensely!

[yaz321]

The next obvious step was to make a start at dissassembling the mess in front of me ready for the powder coaters.

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From some of the service history I have I can see that the car lived in Scotland for a number of sporadic years which might offer some explanation as to how bad some of rear end is

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Luckily I have some spare arms which I'll be stripping and taking to the powder coaters to be on the safer side

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[K Simmonds]

Glad you like the Dewalt impact gun.

Those big 1/2" drive guns are real monsters, they either undo something or break it, if you invest in a 5 Amp hour battery it'll have even more go. I'm strongly considering investing in one of Dewalts new 20 Volt smart battery's as all my power tools are now Dewlat, Though I'm waiting for the price to drop a bit.

I really put mine to the test on the last 7A cambelt job I did! I was replacing the bottom pulley regardless so it didn't matter if I used an impact gun on the 27mm crank bolt which as most members know is extremely tight, to my amazement to broke free within five seconds. I'd already had a go with a 1/2" drive breaker bar and was going damage it or the socket if I persisted, whilst on my way to get my 3/4" drive kit out I though let see what this gun will do. The bolt was not only extremely tight but also smothered in thread lock which is a pet hate of mine, there really is no need to use it on something torqued up that tight.

I only sold that one as I got a brand new naked one for a bargain price as well as one of their super compact 1/2" drive scaffolding guns and simply couldn't justify having three 1/2" drive guns as well as a pair of 1/4" drive one's.

The scaffolding gun is worth getting as well if your feeling flush, I use mine far more than any of my other impact guns and it's not disappointed me yet, it's actually smaller than a 1/4" drive gun but with double the power. It's a DCF921 if you're curious and want to see what I'm talking about. Best £100 I've ever spent! I may even buy another this Christmas if I can get one cheap using an eBay voucher as my father has taken a liking to one of my 1/4" guns whilst doing my extension with me and it's found it's way into his kit.

Nice to hear those door cards are now in use, I wish you all the best in finding a pair of rears to match, if I happen to find a pair I'll forward the details to you.

I've settled for a mint set of very dark grey cloth door cards with the nice Walnut trims already attached, They'll go fine with the black leather seats, I've also got all the dash and heater control trims in Walnut to match. Now I'm considerably closer to 50 years old than 40 I'm officially a fan of good quality wood trim.

Anyway, I've subscribed to this thread as one day I'm going to need to start refreshing the back of mine, I have a complete spare C4 quattro 30V rear end I could prepare ready to save down time. I've already swapped over the entire front suspension and control arms etc in one hit as it had all new bushes as well as genuine Audi dampers and springs not long before I got the car.

[K Simmonds]

Couldn't edit my last post to include a pic of the compact 1/2" drive gun, it's to the left of the 1/4 drive one, the drill is there to give a sense of scale.



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[yaz321]

Well 6 months have passed us by in the blink of an eye and a lot of life has gotten in the way meaning that progress has been up and down on the S4, however more on the up side recently. Plus I've downloaded this tapatalk app that I always see at the bottom of [mention]Tractor Dave [/mention]posts so hopefully that makes life a bit easier uploading straight from the phone.

I agree [mention]K Simmonds [/mention], serious bits of kits.
Also, walnut trim is a favourite of mine, depends on the car though. I had an old E34 which had an executive feel to it, so suited the walnut-esque/wood trim very well. My S4 on the other hand suits the factory carbon fibre pretty damn well.

Anyway, updates incoming…

[yaz321]

Picking up where we left off, the shocks came out and apart



The spring perch was looking crusty

[yaz321]

Next up, the tank came out






I was expecting a leaky mess but think I managed to get off lightly all things considered


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[hunker7]

Bloody love threads like this In process of getting mine back on the road after being parked up in 2019

[yaz321]

Bloody love threads like this In process of getting mine back on the road after being parked up in 2019

Thanks! Good luck with finishing the work and getting your car back on the road ASAP

[yaz321]

A good time to mention that the rear diff came out without too much issue. No adverse play to note so the plan was to install a verkline bush, change flange seals, new seal plugs and of course an oil change.




Now, given what has been peeking out from behind the arch liners, I needed to get behind them to see what I was dealing with





And I wasn't disappointed










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