Capscrew fun-disassembling a quattro

[james accordino]

Just doing some major work on the junkyard special. 
The capscrews that hold the driveshaft CV to the rear
drive input flange are installed with Loctite Red. 
Yeow!  One must have taken 400 ft. lbs. to break
loose!  Observations so far:

The rear struts are shot.  Side slop especially in
crosswinds and sideloading (like exit/entrance ramps)
indicated such, and the fluid all over the body of one
and the lack of any rebound confirmed.  Do Boge struts
fail in rebound first?  The 6 I have examined so far
all had fair compression resistance, but almost no
rebound resistance.

All my seals on the rear drive leak.  I knew the the
input flange seal or cover o-ring leaked.  It's about
a Class 2/3 for any military types.  The rear axle
flange seals both show slight weeping so I'll replace
those as well.

The rear end of this car (184k miles) has obviously
never been touched.  At all.  I'm amazed at how
undamaged everything is.  I knew the inner bushing on
the rear trap arm was shot, but all the other bushings
are very tight and undamaged.  I thought the wheel
bearings might be marginal, so I bought 4 new ones to
replace, but they aren't as bad as I thought they
might be.  I will inspect them more closely when I get
them out of the housing.

The exhaust system is HUGE!  I can't believe how heavy
this thing is.  Three mufflers and assorted pipes, all
welded together.  Again, it is in remarkably good
condition given the age and mileage.  Noticeably
rumbly exhaust note, particularly at idle, suggests to
me that the internal baffling may be going away.  Any
thoughts?  There are NO visible holes anywhere on the
outside of the system.  The sound REALLY bothers the
SO, so I probably will replace this soon.  Anyone buy
one of these monsters?  What does it cost?  How do
they ship this thing?

I am finally going to get a chance to try the BMW
center bearing replacement.  Mine is not really shot,
but the rubber mounting is a little soft.  This is a
subjective observation based on the stiffness of the
rubber on the existing one compared to the new BMW
replacement I purchased.  More to come on this as I
sort it out.

Jim Accordino
p.s.- any observations, comments, or suggestions are
cheerfully accepted