At some point in the tear-down process, the valve body must be removed, and before that, the oil pan. We first removed the oil pump, clutch A and B drums, and front differential. That made a big difference in the weight.

With those parts removed, we lowered the transmission, took it off the transmission jack, and turned it upside down.

We removed the oil pan, by removing the Torx T-27 bolts around the lip. According to the ZF parts manual, these are 26 of them, and they are M6 22-mm bolts, and the oil pan for this transmission comes in three variants:

• Part number 1058 203 019 for the early Audi A8 (1997, 1998) with transmission letter codes DPZ, DSM and DTE
• Part number 1058 203 030 for the Audi S6 (2002-2003) and the 2000-2002 Audi A8 with transmission letter codes FBD and FBG.
• Part number 1058 203 026 for all the Audi A6 models, and the models of the A8 not covered above. Transmission letter codes ECF, FBC, FUL for the A6, and EDG, FBF, FUN for the A8.

The other parts in the oil pan are the same for all the models that use this transmission. The parts are:

• Gasket
• Fill plug (hex)
• O-ring for the fill plug
• Drain plug (hex)
• Magnets, four of them

With the oil pan removed, the valve body was nicely accessible.

Here is a picture of the inside of the oil pan. The large light-covered circle towards the right is the top of the fill plug. The small light-covered circle towards the right is the top of the drain plug. The magnets are toward the lower left; three of them clustered together, and one further down.

Here is a close-up picture of the magnets: