Rear axle beam failure

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seansa2

Member
Can anyone suggest where I can get a rear axle beam at a reasonable price and in good condition? Today something broke quite spectacularly due to corrosion and the garage say I need a new rear axle beam which seems right. The thing that supports the spring on the rear has completely dropped and was in contact with the road because the bit supporting it from underneath has corroded and snapped. I assume this then, is the rear axle beam. The car is 20 years old and I really want to keep it alive but if it costs too much to fix I guess I'll have to scrap it. I am one of those people who wants eventually to get an EV but am also conscious of the carbon footprint required to manufacture any car so figure its best to keep the A2 going if at all possible. Thanks
 
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ah, shame.. I need one now. There are some available from Latvia... but as my garage pointed out, its an unknown quantity in terms of what quality to expect. I don't want to buy something that is too corroded. Maybe you'll have one sooner than expected :) .. I can always hope. Have you heard of this kind of problem before... the spring support just giving way due to corrosion.
 
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seansa2 said:
ah, shame.. I need one now. There are some available from Latvia... but as my garage pointed out, its an unknown quantity in terms of what quality to expect. I don't want to buy something that is too corroded. Maybe you'll have one sooner than expected :) .. I can always hope. Have you heard of this kind of problem before... the spring support just giving way due to corrosion.
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Inappropriate jack locaction on a weakened spring support if you drove it there without issue.
Replacement best option or reweld if structure is sound.
 
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I won't have one before that unfortunately as I've only just got rid of my last breaker and the axle can't be removed until the stripped shell is going.

Andy @Clackers will have a disc brake axle but will probably be the same timeframe I would think.

And yes, rear axles are becoming very much in demand now. It's happened within the last year or so as the cars have hit over 20 years of age.
 
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A2Steve said:
I won't have one before that unfortunately as I've only just got rid of my last breaker and the axle can't be removed until the stripped shell is going.

Andy @Clackers will have a disc brake axle but will probably be the same timeframe I would think.

And yes, rear axles are becoming very much in demand now. It's happened within the last year or so as the cars have hit over 20 years of age.
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Ah the A2 body is everlasting. Everything attached less so. Took the rear axle out last year and spent a number of weekends sanding it back to something half decent. Then a couple coats of rustt preventative followed by a few coats of Hammerite. New brakes, brake pipes, drums, sprngs and bushes. Full strip down of front end next year and rebuild, wish bones (pressed) are shot at. Just want a safe, honest A2. A 2003 TDI. The 3 months I did have it on the road I loved it. Hope you find something you can clean up and give it a lease of life with some TLC even though your in need to get it back on the road. 🤞
 
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I have a spare beam (drum brakes) which is already soda blasted ready to paint. I will be swapping it over at some point but not quite yet...
Can your old one be repaired?
 
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Never used them or know anything about them but you could try a search on proxyparts.com which looks like it covers a lot of breakers operating in The Netherlands. I dread to think what shipping would work out at thou
 
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Just to quote my post on the wishbone collapsed thread....

And best applied to bare metal surfaces otherwise you are "sealing" the corrosion underneath where it will continue unseen.


TBH 18-20 years is good going before failing due to corrosion. The down side is due to the Aluminium on the body we do not see obvious panel corrosion that a traditional steel car suffers, so the steel components under the car get over looked until they fail.


There is no real inspection schedule for these items other than the MOT and that is not a good guarantee. Perhaps we need to inspect and retreat at say the 5 year old stage and reinspect and retreat every 2 years after that. After all we are not inspecting the body for corrosion so that time saved could be put to use effectively looking after the running gear.
 
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audifan said:
There is no real inspection schedule for these items other than the MOT and that is not a good guarantee. Perhaps we need to inspect and retreat at say the 5 year old stage and reinspect and retreat every 2 years after that. After all we are not inspecting the body for corrosion so that time saved could be put to use effectively looking after the running gear.
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Just to reinforce this point I was checking out my rear axle ahead of the MOT test and it is beginning to show signs of needing rubbing down and painting. So I checked when it was sand blasted, zinc primed, given two coats of Smoothrite and sprayed with Dynax UC, Just 2 years ago https://www.a2oc.net/community/index.php?threads/how-to-repair-restore-your-audi-a2-rear-axle.44808/
The corrosion is on the spring support, it appears to be a weak point.
 
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philward said:
Just to reinforce this point I was checking out my rear axle ahead of the MOT test and it is beginning to show signs of needing rubbing down and painting. So I checked when it was sand blasted, zinc primed, given two coats of Smoothrite and sprayed with Dynax UC, Just 2 years ago https://www.a2oc.net/community/index.php?threads/how-to-repair-restore-your-audi-a2-rear-axle.44808/
The corrosion is on the spring support, it appears to be a weak point.
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So Phil, knowing what you do now, would you go for the powder coat (or another) option? Seems like 2 years is not enough service life for the protective coating to be worth the effort of this job. Interested to know what hindsight is now saying to you, if anything different from your how-to guide.
 
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philward said:
Just to reinforce this point I was checking out my rear axle ahead of the MOT test and it is beginning to show signs of needing rubbing down and painting. So I checked when it was sand blasted, zinc primed, given two coats of Smoothrite and sprayed with Dynax UC, Just 2 years ago https://www.a2oc.net/community/index.php?threads/how-to-repair-restore-your-audi-a2-rear-axle.44808/
The corrosion is on the spring support, it appears to be a weak point.
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It will be the weld area that the corrosion starts in, all we can do is try & keep on top of the corrosion & if any welding is required make the necessary preparation work as required with the addition of zinc rich weldable primmer prior to welding.
 
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This is a really interesting thread, I did quite a bit of work cleaning up and rust treating mine over the summer

Does anyone know whether any other axles from VAG are cross compatible, say from the Polo or Fabia.? Superficially at least they look very similar. Just thinking about longer term options to counter dwindling stocks of genuine A2 axles.
 
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dj_efk said:
So Phil, knowing what you do now, would you go for the powder coat (or another) option? Seems like 2 years is not enough service life for the protective coating to be worth the effort of this job. Interested to know what hindsight is now saying to you, if anything different from your how-to guide.
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Next time I’m under my A2 I’ll take a closer look, get some pictures and report back.
Edit: I think the rust is mainly on the spring seats which is in the firing line for road debris that are thrown up. If everything else has held out I would probably apply a robust chip guard coating to only the vulnerable areas.
 
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