Hahaha, that was going to be my next post. Changing the inner tie rods didn't seem to change anything. I'm going to take a look at all the rear suspension components tomorrow and see if I can find anything out of the ordinary. I'm beginning to get a little frustrated with my car.

 

Um.. how come you didnt just buy the whole hose? It'd be tons easier, and prolly cheaper, than finding a hose shop to make one up...

 

The OEM hose alone is too short for the power steering cooler mod. I could just extend the OEM hose by coupling another hose onto the end of it, but I'd rather just have one hose go the entire length. If I could get my hands on that banjo fitting and the proper length of some universal power steering hose I think it would be cheaper and cleaner looking.

 

Well, it'd be cleaner... You should be able to find that fitting, or one that will work, at any place that makes hydrualic hoses.

Or, if you have a NAPA close, they can look through thier catalog of pre-mades and find something that will work. Thats how I found mine for my '85 Dodge truck - the one listed was wrong, but a search and trial and error showed one for a '73 Dodge Ram 4x4 worked just fine...


I wouldnt trust 'extending' it.. even if its the Low side.

 

Cool, thanks. I'll give that a try.

 

i can probably get you a few used ones since we have like 6 audis including 4 A4s at our local salvage yard.

 

That would be awesome, and save me a lot of money. I can't seem to find any Audis in any of my local junkyards, and no one seems to sell that fitting without the hose.

 

I decided to measure my wheelbase, just as another thing to rule out if possible. The results were a little surprising. I don't remember the numbers, but the left side is 1/4 of an inch longer than the right. What affect would this have on handling? and can it be fixed without spending a lot of money?

I also checked all the rear bushings and this is what I found:

Driver side rear lower control arm rear bushing:

Passenger side rear lower control arm rear bushing:

The passenger side bushing appears to have slightly more play than the driver side one (indicated by the distance from the bolt to the center of the bushing), but still appears to serve its purpose. They didn't feel any different from one another when I pushed on them while the wheel bearing housings were removed.


This is a picture of the driver side rear tie rod bushing and sway bar bushing. I replaced the rear tie rods along with bushings when I installed my coilovers, but I would think that the two circled bushings in this pic should look similar to each other and not squished and inflated like they are. The passenger side is the same way.



This is a picture of the driver side rear upper control arm to wheel bearing housing bushing. My concern is that either this washer isn't supposed to be conical, or that it's positioned backwards. The washer on the passenger side is facing the same direction.


I guess the only thing left to do is fix the difference in the wheelbase and get an alignment. Any advice on exactly what needs to be done at the alignment shop?

 

that washer is not supposed to be conical. i replace all my upper rear bushings in the summer and it made a huge difference on tire wear. the lowers look fine to me. take a closer look at your rear subframe. it might be the culprit

 

Yikes, guess I'll change out those washers then. I'm guessing a close match from a hardware store will do?

By all of your upper rear bushings, do you mean all three of the bushings that are on each rear upper control arm?

What exactly on my rear subframe should I check?

Nothing else that I mentioned is likely to be problematic?