Hey everyone. My dad and I are in the middle of replacing the center support bearing and front CV joint on my driveshaft and I thought I'd post some pics of the progress. The car is a 95.5 S6 with a 10/95 build date. Enjoy!



Here is the car, the front resting on ramps and the rear on a pair of 6 ton heavy duty jacks.





Here is the exhaust, in all its glory. Everything from the cats downward had to come off to access the driveshaft. Almost ALL of the bolts had welded themselves in there and had to be sawed off, so they will need to be replaced. In front of the cats you can see the various heat shields used to buffer the driveshaft from the hot exhaust, which runs right under it.





Here is the driveshaft. The rear cv joint has the bag over it. The front cv joint is already removed(had to be hammered off). The center support bearing goes in the middle so the shaft had to be separated into two pieces at the u-joint. There is a bolt that needs to be unscrewed in order to separate the two halves but unfortunately, the bolt broke while trying to loosen it. We had to hammer the two halves loose and drill the remnants of the bolt out. Not sure if the bolt is even needed, since the two halves were nailed pretty tight together. We'll use a shorter one I guess, because the only way to insert it into the hole is thru the u-joint.





Here is a closeup of the separation of the two halves of the driveshaft at the u-joint. The center support bearing goes on the beginning of the right half.





Here is a comparison of the two support bearings. The new one is at the top, followed by the old OEM one, with the bearing and rubber removed. On the old one, the surrounding rubber part was cracked and wobbly, which resulted in driveshaft vibration. The new one is a Meyle BMW part, purchased from Darin N @ s-cars.org





Here are the two support bearings again, this time one on top of the other. New one is at the bottom, old one at the top. Note the difference in the mounting bracket. Will have to fabricate something to make it work.





Here is a comparison of the front cv-joints, new one on the left and old one on the right. The grease in the front cv-joint had turned into a pasty material and eventually the joint wore out. It's been loose and making clanking noises for quite a while now. The new CV joint is a porsche part, again purchased from Darin N.





Here is the front mounting point for the driveshaft, at the torsen differential. The grease is all dried up and pasty and will need to be replaced.





Here is the rear mounting point for the shaft, at the rear diff. The grease here is good and plentiful and therefore the rear cv joint is in good shape.





Here are the elusive parking brake cables, which are damn near inaccessible with the exhaust in place

I will post more pics later. This is Day 2 of the project....all of the old bolts on the exhaust still need to be removed and replaced and everything reassembled. Hopefully the car will be ready in time for waterfest. Thanks for looking!

Rokas

Current
1995.5 Audi S6 - 215,xxx

Past Audis
1987 5000s 10v
1986 5000cs turbo 10vt
1993 100s 5sp 12v