Audi A4 Quattro Axle and Ball Joints

We've had the axle laying around for quite some time now….we were just missing the car!  Finally the car arrived, and I went about replacing the torn axle boot/axle assembly on the passenger side.  The car has about 160k miles on it, so for the cost of the axle, it didn't make sense to just replace a boot, when likely the axle doesn't have that much life left on it anyway.  There was also a lot of clunking going on in the suspension, which is pretty common on audi/vw's (usually after about 60k miles), and the culprit is the ball joints in the control arms.  The best part, is that there are 8 ball joints/control arms to replace when they start clunking….and usually when one is shot….they all are.  But…..on this car we decided to do a bandaid fix for now of just the upper 4 arms.

 

 

First up was to tackle the axle.  Pretty straight forward, disassembling that side of the suspension.  The axle bolt was tight, and I broke 1 breaker bar adapter, and one 17mm allen socket……but I prevailed eventually, lol.

 

After soaking down all the bolts with kroil, I was able to pop the upper control arms and tie rod off.  This can be a bit of a chore when you do this work, and I usually recommend replacing all the hardware at the same time.

 

And poof…..the axle and upper control arms are replaced on the passenger side.  It was too greasy to try and take pictures while wrestling the axle out 😉

 

Next will be to repeat on the other side for those upper control arms. 

A4AudiAxleBall JointsClunkingControl ArmsDoc Wilen RacingQuattroRennsportKCSuspension