2308 miles under my behind ATB (After TB replacement).
I had to adjust the TB tensioner, as I had a little slack that was causing most of the chatter.
It turns out that the car started to lose about half a quart of oil/per 1000 miles after last update - at 1070 miles (at least that's how much oil I added ever since). The oil is not that clean anymore, so probably I will seafoam the engine before the next oil change.
Regardless, I find hard to pinpoint the exact leak locale as oil is sprayed on the downpipes. Two suspected places: upper oil pan gasket, or engine rear main cover gasket (I saw drips there before).
If it is the latter, I guess I'll just live with adding oil from time to time and clean the undercarriage between oil changes; I have neither the means, nor the time to unbolt the transmission from the engine to replace that seal.

Planned for November:
- Suspension overhaul (idem as Jim)
- Rotors + Pads + Calipers (at least the front). --> Although the pads are still THICK, braking is pretty wobbly and I also have a slight vibration at high speeds and especially when accelerating. Either a caliper is somewhat stuck, or I have at least one warped rotor. Too bad I don't physically have enough time to look into it right now.

 

About to do the brake pads myself.. While the fronts look to have alot of meat left, while I had the rears off to do the struts, I noticed the pads were awfully thin.

Which pads you thinking of getting?

 

I think I'll either go with PBR or Centric (Posi-Quiet). I'm not a big spender on "fancy" yellow, green, red, or blaujendarmwithpolkadots show-off stuff.

 

I have my daughter's 1998 A6 wagon C4 chassis 2.8L 12 valve AFC engine apart for headgaskets, etc. The main problem has been that the engine block coolant drain seems to be permanently plugged even after flushing. I even tried screwing a 1/4" NPT 4" long brass pipe into the drain hole and backflushing with 65psi water pressure. Refilling with antifreeze will be more difficult, since I can't drain all of the flush water.
The engine would overheat while idling with a dummy thermostat and before the radiator fans would come on with a 85C radiator fan switch. The stock radiator fan switch is 95C/105C. A small amount of water was coming out of the tail pipe.
So, the overheating is caused by bad headgaskets or by a plugged cooling system.
The V71 A/C servo motor located at the evaporator housing to heater housing tube also broke. For some reason Bentley claims that the V71 servo is not installed on US or Canadian models, however it is there.

 

No 'Hawk HPS'? Seems to me they were the cheapest...?

 

HC,
although my car never heated since I bought it, I must agree with you.
Even though I have flushed it several times when doing the TB (including disconnecting both feeder and return hoses to the heater core and running water through them), I still had old gunk remaining in the system that has now moved on the walls of the new coolant tank.
From pristine and immaculate white when I mounted it on, the tank has now a gunky "banner" all around, exactly in between the Min and Max marks. I'll do another flush in November when I'll work on the suspension. Maybe that way I can eliminate most of the crappy old stuff the car had throughout the cooling system.

As far as the engine drain plug, I had some problems when I removed it because of the lack of adequate tools (I think the pics are on page 1), but I was able to remove it.
Isn't there any way to get it unscrewed?
If you still can't do it, probably you can run just (distilled) water in the system for a while - while is still warm outside and flush it several times. That way you can get most of the gunk out of the engine block progressively before filling her up again with the expensive antifreeze.

 

Where do you find cheap Hawks?
ECSTuning has PBR for about $ 65 with the wear sensors. The "ultimate ceramic" ones are $ 100.
I came acros Hawks only from $ 150 up.

 

Really?

Hang on..

 

Are we talking just the fronts?

Hawk HPS Ferro-Carbon w/sensors for $102: http://www.autopartswarehouse.com/se...&refValue=Hawk

 

Found a set for the rear - $ 73.07

Front set - $ 116 without the sensors