Well I hope this is not what has happened to me. I had everything buttoned up yesterday and let the car run for about 30 minutes with no (seemed) issues. I started the car this morning and after about 5 minutes I took the car for a spin. I noticed a little lack in HP and about a mile or so from the house the car started sputtering, running ruff and the CEL light started blinking. I limped back to the house and looked over the car as it was running. No noticeable sounds, sights or smells. I did notice a very, very slight smell of burning wire but it was hard to tell with all the other smells of an engine... Pretty sure I just have a vacuum leak somewhere, but dear god the amount of vac tubing under the hood is like the miles of intestines we house in our bodies...

I will see if I can find that thread your starting and also will try to find another thread that shows how to remove most of the vac tubing that is not needed.

OH, FYI I did break the breather tube during this install so had to repair that as well. (Not sure if I stated that above.)

 

Okay, F this car!!! (Just wanted to get that out of the way)

So I took a step back after all, and looked everything over. I'm pretty sure there is a vac leak somewhere, I just have to find it. Then I noticed that the Breather tube elbow that connects into the crankcase was slightly offset. So I pulled the TB, Reservoir and all the other crap to get back to the elbow. Seated the eblow (yes it's spelled wrong but this BLOWS!!) and pushed the ring back on. Made sure all other connections were tight, or as well as I can with the pull method and tightening every clamp. Still running like crap.

Like I said earlier I cracked the breather hose coming off the valve cover. So I found this write up (DIY: B6 A4 1.8t ** Upper Vacuum/Breather Hose Replacement (Brittle/Crumbly)). During this fix my tube was broken on both sides of the TEE just before the elbow. So buying the parts that are listed and only having that to work with, I cut about 3 inchs of the 3/4" hose, notched a small V out of one end, and jammed it into the elbow. That seems to be holding. I did notice that the breather tube elbow had a couple stress cracks in it, which in theory could lead to my issues, but not sure. I called the VW Stealership in my area and they want $90 freaking dollars for it!!! I threw the BS flag at that douchebag!

The elbow I am speaking is part #06A103213AM (Found HERE at ECS Tuning). I noticed many other people referencing part #06A103213F (Found HERE at ECS Tuning).

So I am stuck till the part comes in.... Oh, did find this as an option. Billet Aluminum Breather Adapter for 1.8T, MK4 2.0L

 

I had the same problem and mine was the f***ing rear coolant flange cheap part to buy from Audi but a pain in the *** to put in

 

Just wanted to give an update to this POS / PITA DIY thread... I thought this was what happened to me also, but think it was just a coil/plug... Crap, who knows... READ MORE

If you don't want to read my full write-up, I will do my best current movie impression and give you the end now, then gentle walk you through the story...

The car is running in pretty good condition (still would like to seafoam and may have a small vac leak I have to chase down).
Initial issue - Coolant leak (coolant flange) / Oil leak (Valve cover gasket)
Along the way issues - Broken breather hose AND elbow / couple check valves / valve cover stud / THEN troubleshooting that turned into new plugs & coils.
FINAL TALLY - $197.00 ish in parts & shipping Downtime = 3+ weeks & I am pretty sure I took away 10 years of my life because of this BS job!!!

THE STORY (Best told in a timeline)
11/16
So, as initially stated, the coolant light was coming on and there was a pretty awesome smell coming from the car after a little warmup. I had the car looked at by my local VW dealer (thank god I knew someone) and they pointed out the coolant flange & that my valve cover gasket was slightly leaking. He quoted me 6+ hours labor (4 on the flange, 2 on the gasket) plus $100+ in parts for just the gasket & flange. So you can do the math to get an amount of money I was not willing to pay before doing some research. I have done most of my own auto work unless its under warranty or dealing with welding or machining and have been tuning/tinkering with imports for awhile now. Not to mention I am currently working on a project to swap a Infiniti Q45 V8 into a Nissan S13 240sx AND my DD is a lightly modded LS powered Chevy Trailblazer SS. So how hard could this be, right???

WTF was I thinking!!?!?!?!!??? I should have left the car at VW or better yet, hit that big *** pine tree that just happened to be in the middle of the road on my way home. (lol) Either way, off to the house I went, ready to research for parts and DIY's...

11/17
Found the Parts on partsgeek.com and I found DIY's and by the bunches... But there were only a couple that were really in-depth to the work that one was getting themselves into BUT none of them really hit on everything. A couple of the best write ups I hit on earlier in this thread.

11/22
Had the day off, so started working on the car. The could DIY's I found were nice but still just did not elude to the amount of 'prep work' you need to do to move stuff out of the way just to get to the freaking coolant flange. SO FYI you will have to move almost every vac hose out of the way and by doing this, YOU ARE GOING TO BREAK SOMETHING!!! Be it a check valve, breather tube, knuckle, something is going to get broken, so be ready for everything!!! So I would get a little work done... Go research and find a different thread... Go get a little more work done... Go do more research... As you can see, this was a PITA!!!

11/23
PARTS IN FROM PARTSGEEK... I started removing the valve cover and one of the studs broke off. When I removed the cover there was plenty of stud sticking out, but if you can imagine (or if you have been in these shoes) I was freaking out!!! Took a deep breath, did some research and then was able to follow some info I found on removal/threading (later in the process). AND actually it was pretty damn simple! I do not advise breaking one just to find this out on your own of course.

TOO MUCH TURKEY!!!!!

11/26
PICKED UP PLUGS / COOLANT. With the valve cover off I noticed that a lot of oil had been getting to my plugs but the car never smoked or misfired. I replaced the plugs either way. I replaced the valve cover gasket and placed the cover back on to keep working on getting to the flange. (REMEMBER: At this time the only parts I had ordered were the gasket and the flange)

11/27
Getting to the flange is literally a PAIN IN THE A$$ (and legs and neck and back and forearms if I could have shown some pics). I removed most the vac lines shown in DIY. I removed the top pancake valve and just tried to reposition it to the drivers side of the motor when 'snap', it broke in TWO places. If you follow that hose connected to the pvc valve down, it goes to a TEE then to an ELBOW that goes into the crankcase. Well pretty much on both sides of the tee the hoses just feel apart and the elbow split on both ends (didn't really know this at the time). I continued to get to the flange but it was getting late and I needed to take a break...

11/28 - 12/2
PICKED UP HEATER HOSE KIT. The next morning I knew that I had broke the breather hose but did not know the extent. Plus, I didn't even think I was close (which really I was) to getting the flange out so I had my work cut out for me. I found a DIY breather hose replace and it was pretty straight forward. The only issue for me was that I broke the elbow going into the crankcase AND there is no DIY to fix that. At the time I didn't know it, so after getting the flange out, fixing the breather tube the best I could and putting it all back together, I let the car idle for about 20mins and everything seemed to be smooth.

12/3
I started her up in the morning, and the car ran like $h!t.... I was SOOOO F-ING pissed!!! I rechecked everything I could and all arrows pointed to the broken breather elbow (so I thought). I called VW parts and they wanted almost $90 + tax for that little elbow. ECStuning (linked above) had it for less than half that. So F the Stealer, I will find a better way.

12/4
Sunday night I was looking over options on how to fix this breather tube and elbow issue and many people pointed out that this should probably have been a recalled item. These tubes seem to break as soon as any slight shift in the paradox. So I removed EVERY VAC line I could that tied to the car!!! Every one... I had a plethora of vac hoses in my garage and for one reason; to make sure there would be no more leak!!! I replaced every clamp I could (I would love to beat the crap out of the guy that invented these clamps also, BTW!!!) and waited on the next step.

12/5
I found 034 MOTORSPORT and they had created a fix with their threaded block breather adapter for the 1.8t's. I spoke to customer service on Monday morning to verify they had these in stock and to make sure it would be shipped out then. Long story short, USPS priority mail which was promised 1-3day trans time was not going to show up till 5-7days later. I emailed customer service about my issue and got a response from Paul Gutierrez with 034.

12/8
He looked into the issue and then shipped out the same order for me again over night FEDEX. So I have to give a quick shout out to Paul and the guys at 034Motorsport for the above and beyond customer service!!!!

12/9
034MOTORSPORTS PARTS IN. If you are still awake, FEDEX dropped the needed adapter and 90 to me a little before 3pm. I did a little work to get the adapter in and some of the tubing, but did not finish.

12/10
ORDERED IGNITION COIL. I finished putting all the hoses back in, intake, coolant, checked all levels, hooked all coils and was ready to fire... Started the car up and still running like crap. Now this was a new issue as the car may have had leaks in the past but we never had issues with the car misfiring. I was able to get a friends OBDII scanner and pulled 3 codes all dealing with misfires. I simply changed the coils from the problem cylinders and erased the codes from the ecm. When I started the car the next time I was told that one of the coils was bad. After picking up a new coil (They have already been replaced twice by ME!!) the car was running!!!! YEAH...

Synopsis of my story, again:
PROS - Saved $$$ / Doing the job on my own. Oh, F that.. NO Pros!
CONS - Time car was down / Horrible Audi engineering (from the coolant flange, breather hose material, stupid *** 1-use clamps, studs, I could go on) / Still paid over $200 / Can't feel my legs...
COST - $200 (give or take a couple bucks)
PARTS - Flange / Gasket / Stud / 3/4 Heater hose kit / 15" 3/4" Heater Hose / Hose Clamps / Coolant / CV / Billet Adapter and elbow / Spark Plugs x4 / Ignition Coil
CAR TIME-DOWN: 20 mother-fing days!!! Most of that was shipping time

OH, DID I MENTION 2004 AUDI A4 QUATTRO 4SALE!!!!!

 

FYI... Here is the location for the breather adapter from 034MOTORSPORTS.COM...

Block Breather Adapter, Audi/VW 1.8T - 034 MOTORSPORT

I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THIS PART and 034MS!!!!

 

After that that reply, I sure am looking forward to fixing my coolant leak

 

I feel your pain! I've owned my b6 now for right at 2 months and I can't think of 1 week that I haven't had to fix something. And usually do to poor engineering. (1 time hose clamps, plastic that is supposed to hold in high temp situations, etc..)
I would like to say though after fixing all that why would want to sell it? Sure there is gonna be more things to fix, but I can't throw all that hard work away.
I was feeling so confident after rewiring the coil pack harness, I rewired the fuel injector harness also (same scenario, corroded wires that were barely hanging on). But the real gift was the thermostat that I replaced 60 days ago is crap. It's like a never ending bad joke. But I'm telling myself that after all this I'd done I SHOULD be good for like another 5 years maintainance free....

Oh and definite props to Paul and the guys at 034 motorsports. They got me the coil pack harness super fast and earned a customer for life. First place I look for anything is 034.

 

Honestly the worst issue was the availability of parts in my driving area. Don't get me wrong, this was a POS job and had a TON of little worth-less 'WTF were they thinking' parts and pieces that needed to waded thru just to get to what you need AND then breaking crap on the way, that it became a bunch of BS!!!
BUT if an Audi dealer would have been here in town or I lived closer to 034 Motorsports then I wouldn't have been down for such a long time...

So if and when you do this just remember you are going to (most probably anyways) break something else in the vac / breather lines... It's really an easy fix if it is just the tube but if you break the elbow going into the crankcase you only have two options: buy the part OR buy the adapter... AND if you are going to buy the adapter call 034 order it over the phone and depending on how fast you need it should depend on how you ship. JUST NOTE (AND I WAS NOT TOLD THIS AT THE TIME) They DO NOT ship USPS items out same day!!! I ordered at 10:30AM and they still didn't ship same day. Thus, the reason I was overnight'ed the part later in the week...

Two reasons I guess... First, is like I said above, parts availability and no Audi dealer in my area. My VW dealer is even a JOKE!!! Second, (you eluded to) We hope so but don't really know. Either way, I am able to sell a decent car that still maintains good value on to the next guy before it blows up on me.....

 

Well, I can certainly empathize with your pain. The biggest PITA job that I've ever undertaken was replacing the crankcase breather system on my B5. Between the rigid plastic breather hoses that snap in half if you look at them wrong, and those insanely stupid single use hose clamps(would love to disembowel the engineer who thought up that design)...this job was a complete PITA. Made so even more by the fact that there was little room available on the 2.8 with which to work in the rear of the engine.

I must admit, though, it was worth doing it myself and saving a $hitload of money on labor. But it was frustrating as hell.

Unlike you, however, I ended up buying a couple of B6's. I guess I'm just a masochist at heart!

 

I am not going to go there!!!