4Driver4

Ran into to something interesting (to me anyway) today. I am in the midst of a major "once over" on the A6 Avant that includes a timing belt service and cam adjuster seal replacement. This is my fourth timing belt job on the 30v engine, and I have all the tools, so the job has become fairly routine to me. This time, however, was one of those times when nothing wanted to fall into place; this job was a struggle every step of the way.

The installation of the timing belt itself was a major pain. The belt seemed too short for the car, yet it was the same length as the old belt. After fooling around with it for about half an hour, I finally got it on. (I think that there was a "loop" under the crank sprocket that took up some of the slack.) Now ordinarily I am fairly confident in my work and I completely reassemble the car before starting it - I want to start it once with coolant in it and let it come up to temp before I shut it off. But this time, because of the trouble I had with the timing belt, I started it after installing the covers, but before installing the serpentine belt or bolting the rad cover in place. The Audi gods smiled, and the car started right up. Because there was no coolant in the car, I shut it down immediately. Then I went the UConn Men's Basketball game (v. UMass) and didn't touch the car until this morning.

This morning I added coolant, installed the serp belt, bolted the radiator support back into place, and started the car...except that the car wouldn't start. It almost sounded like it was going to start at first crank, but immediately went into "crank but no start" mode - not even a pop or a fart, just dead cranking. I pulled the front of the car apart and discovered that the belt was (still) installed correctly (thank god). Hmmm.

Then I remembered slideleft's post (link below) about the cam adjuster problem he was having. I cranked the car a little more and was pretty sure I could hear the chains slapping around. Great. I couldn't believe that just compressing the adjusters would damage them...so I hopped back in the car and started cranking again, this time with my foot on the floor.

Eventually, one cylinder at time, the engine rattled back to life. Plenty of noise, but once it hit on all six holes, it quieted right down. It purrs like a kitten now.

So lesson learned here. If you mess with the cam adjusters, run the car long enough to get oil pressure back to them when the first start the car. Slideleft, put your car back together and crank the hell out it.<ul><li><a href="https://forums.audiworld.com/a6/msgs/575300.phtml">Slideleft's post of last week.</a></li></ul>

MarkW

4Driver4 do you have a good link for the procedures for the cam adjuster seals? Not listed in Tech

4Driver4

to remove the timing belt to get to them. Since my car was leaking oil from the cam adjuster seals and the cam seals the timing belt had to come off, so I took the "opportunity" to do a full belt service.

For the passenger side (adjuster seal in the rear), I like to take the cams and adjuster out of the head as a unit. It's easier for me than removing the EGR valve. If you aren't replacing the timing belt at the same time, the exhaust cam cannot (obviously) be removed, but you can remove the EGR valve unbolt the intake cam and and cam adjuster enough to change the seals.

To the driver's side, I leave the cams in place. Since th adjuster seal is in the front, it's easy to get to with the metal timing belt guard removed. If the belt isn't being changed, the guard cannot be removed, so here I would bolt both the intake cam and the adjuster.

There isn't a lot of slack in the chains, so it's actually fairly hard to mess up the timing between the two cams.

QCRAZY

<ul><li><a href="http://www.robsaudiworld.com/2.8camseal.htm">Click!</a></li></ul>

MarkW

I take it the 2.7 is identical to the 2.8 in this dept.

QCRAZY

Yep

Kris Hansen

your plugs were probably gas fouled. The engine was 'flooded'. You shouldn't ever shut off one of these thigns till the fast idle is done.

4Driver4

I'll buy that. It did act like it was flooded. You can bet I'll never do it again - lol

toolagit2qwit

4Driver4,

I live in CT and yes, a UCONN fan myself!

I have a '99 A6 2.8 with the cam seal leaks-I think- The underside is completely wet of oil- I cleaned it, put it up on ramps, ran the engine and can't seem to find the source of the leak- I assume after reading many threads this is probably the culprit. The car has 110K, timing belt was changed @ 95K for 2nd time- valve cover gaskets are original, but don't seem to be leaking-

Two questions for you:
1) Would be willing to work on my car for a fee- of course? If so, e-mail is toolagit2qwit@yahoo.com.

2) Since the oil is getting on the cats, is there an immediate danger w/ a fire?

Thanks for your help!<ul><li><a href="http://toolagit2qwit@yahoo.com">http://toolagit2qwit@yahoo.com</a</li></ul>