The lift is so much better. I just reached a point where I had enough. I took down the old garage and built a new one just so I could have a lift. 3 minute bumper removal, that’s a true mechanic. You never checked back in about your car.
Stay tuned, I have a ton more.
If needed, I actually have all the valves I pulled out for you and your build when you and jimmyBones were doing your car. That was me that was pulling the heads apart for you when you had the bad valves. Or, I think that was you.
Back to the action
It’s almost like the real work hadn’t even started yet and that’s after getting the motor out of the car and on the table.
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With the motor out on the table. I was ready to start taking down the motor. Before I even started, I took a deep breath and said “well, I wonder what else I’m going to find even getting to the timing components.”
The first step was to pull off the transmission. I remembered there was an odd noise when I pushed in the clutch pedal, on the drive home just after I bought the car. I was hoping to find something obvious and simple to fix when I pulled off the transmission.
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With the transmission off, it was clear what was going on.
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The throwout bearing was done. The throwout bearing is what pushes against the pressure plate to separate your clutch disk and flywheel from contact with eachother. The throwout bearing is able to spin and is a bearing with bearing balls inside of it. Those were all shot and that would explain the noise when I pushed in the clutch pedal.
Its not supposed to look like this.
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It sits against the pressure plate like this. The indentions on the throwout bearing are from the plate fingers digging into it.
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You can see how it’s caused wear on the plate fingers here.
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If you’ve never seen how the starter works before and how it acts on the flywheel. Here is a good picture of the starter and how it sits over the flywheel starter teeth.
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well, the good news with the clutch is, it was the original clutch that came on the car. The bad news about it being original was that the bolts didn’t want to come out of the pressure plate. After a little work with the mini Thor hammer and the mild persuasion hammer, it was time to pull out the air hammer and just force the bolts off.
Hitting the bolts with the air hammer really did the job. We used it for 3 of the bolts.
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After getting the pressure plate off you could see the clutch and most of its components were at the end of their lifespan. Not too many burn marks in the flywheel. As you look closer, you can see that the dreaded flywheel bearing was starting to fail.
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Closer inspection shows the damage. It’s not bad now, but it wasn’t going to be long. You can see the cracks on the lower right-hand side
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Nothing too surprising with the clutch and flywheel.
For this project, I went looking for a car that would have all the issues a high mile used car would have and it looks like all the usual suspects are present.
One issue that people might not have seen is this or just don’t know about. This is the sensor you would see on the back of the motor, coming out of the oil housing
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What you normally don’t see is that it can leak oil right out of the sensor itself.
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This next one is something I hate to see people waste money on.
The oil check valves can go bad, but it’s rare. Most importantly, oil check valves are not the cure for anything timing component wise. I have heard people say that they think an oil check valve will help reduce or worse yet solve chain rattle. No, if you have chain rattle your issues are well beyond what anything small is going to fix.
One quick and easy way to check to see if the oil check valves are good is to just pull off the oil filter housing and see if you have a puddle of oil on the check valve passage, like this.
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If you can see standing oil, the check valves are working. The check valves work to stop the oil flow from going backward. If you do have an oil check valve that is stuck open in most cases it’s from debris causing an interference keeping it open. You can pull them out and clean them. In the cases that they are indeed damaged beyond clean repair, you should replace them.
Now that I have all of these things addressed and off of the motor, I was able to get a quick peak by pulling off one of the top chain covers.
Here is what’s funny, when you see a picture like this you think ok, that’s not good sign.
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Well, after I saw this next picture, I felt like the first broken guide picture was in great shape. When you look at the next picture you will understand why my next thoughts were, “Well this is going to be worse than I thought.”
Those of you that have done the service and some of you that haven’t might see just whats wrong here.
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Hmmm, that’s not supposed to be there.
Next update you’ll get to see just how bad it was. Seeing that still isn’t going to prepare you for whats under the rest of the cover.
I find it amazing how VAG had these chain guide issues since older generation engines and yet the launch the 2.0 TSI and claim the chain and guide is for the lifetime of the vehicle. That tensioner on the top looks exactly the same of the 2.0 TSI… Can stress enough how you have to keep an eye on that.
Yes! Another awesome build thread to keep me inspired about working on my own car. Very impressed by the fact that you would take on such a rebuild. I am aghast though! That car does not have a ton of miles but holy shit…it is literally falling apart! The PO obviously just put gas in it and nothing more.
Mmm my favorite flavor - Peanut butter and timing chain guide chuck.
That is a hard flavor to swallow. WOW that looks nasty.
i didnt check back in because i havent had time to play with it. im tackling the o2 and gonna bleed the clutch on wed. ill also pop the bumper off and trim the tube. ill shoot u a msg once i make a bit of progress. i literally havent moved the car since last we spoke but now reading your thread youve inspired me to get my ass in gear once again lol.
Yup, it was us and the bearing caps. I still have the two you sent us, do you want me to send them back to you?
Also, what’s the name of that sensor behind the engine that gets oil dribbled onto it? I’m sure Jimmy mentioned it to me in passing but I have terrible short term memory.
This is what I don’t understand about the 4.2 naysayers. They scream “it should be a ‘lifetime’ part” because Audi said it should last lifetime but then are not aware of the daily wear and tear of the related components. They also preach that the timing system is flawed but then they don’t realize that current day Audi’s are also chain driven…I dunno, maybe it’s my twisted appreciation for the engineering that went into it or because I got a chance to work with (and understand the basics of) the components; it just irks me when they fail to appreciate a solid engine.
OT:
Good stuff Count
EDiT:
When you get to it, can you do a breakdown of the cylinder heads and the differences between the rebuilt JHM heads, a standard third party rebuild and stock heads?
I just learned something today and wanted some indepth knowledge on it; like does the OEM heads use a 3-angle valve job like certain LS engines or was that something JHM did for their rebuilt heads…etc.
It is the oil pressure switch.
[quote=“slow4,post:28,topic:7247”]
Count, I didn’t mean it towards Audi, but more towards people who think they are bullet proof. I appreciate every bolt position on my Audi engine, don’t take me wrong, it amazes me how much room you have to build these engines up, but still amazes me how people in general just buy that a timing component is for the lifetime of the vehicle.
Maybe their understand of a “lifetime of the vehicle” is 10k miles before warranty expires… For me it just sound like a marketing gimmick more than a reality.
A timing component should always be on a schedule 50-60k miles imho, that’s all…
Paulo.
You can keep them as a gift. Enjoy the caps. I know its not a sexy gift but hey, its a gift of car parts.
I will do a breakdown and I’ll also work on showing how to breakdown the stock heads and what they look like.
Yes, the PO just drove the car. That’s what I was looking for. These S4s are very consistent in what goes wrong. I knew if I got a car without the normal general maintenance that we ask enthusiasts do I could highlight the usual broken parts.
The guides on these and some of the 2.0T cars are definitely something that shouldn’t be called “lifetime”
Who doesn’t love the high mileage flavor of chain guide chuck?
I thought I’d let the pictures do most of the talking on this post. Enjoy
When we left off last time I was showing the preview of what was to come. Chunks of chain guide laying in the cover valley.
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There were bits on the other side just the same. You could find guide bits all over the place. I bumped the chain and more parts fell down
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I pulled the back covers all the way off and pieces just kept showing up.
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After getting the covers off and looking, it was clear just how bad the damage was and how lucky I got. Some of you will see the missing parts right away.
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and a full back shot
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For those of you who might not be aware of how the motor should look and what guides should be where.
Here is a picture showing not one but that there were two guides missing completely. Not to mention that there was a third guide that was cracked
http://audirevolution.net/addons/albums/images/404843837.jpg
Here is a reference picture. This is what it normally looks like
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After seeing just how bad it was. I started to wonder just how long these guides have been missing. By looking at the groove marks in the guide pin, it was evident that this had been going on for a while. Hard to say how long exactly.
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You can’t see the grooves in this picture, but you can see how the chain was riding on the guide pins. This one is normal for most people to see missing but it was heavily grooved from the chain.
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The shame of all this is that the last owner of the car paid a big chunk of money to the dealership for them to fix the problem. The dealer ended up not addressing the correct issue. They changed parts but the evidence points to these guides being broken and cracked at the same time they replaced the adjuster.
Here is what they changed, I’m sure the sprocket was worn out so, it wasn’t a total loss
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The other one shows some signs of mileage
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To get an idea on how bad the other side might have been when the dealer changed it, I took apart the adjuster.
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There was some serious ware on this side. So, I assume the other side would have had the same.
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Pictures like these show why the S4’s needs ALL metal guides instead of just replacing just the 1 center guide with an RS4 piece.
I know the center one is the most vulnerable one, but I have seen that large, top guide broken in many other cases as well. I think those 2 black guides are most prone to breaking, with the others not far behind. Some company needs to start making all of the guides with a metal body and the nylon liner just like the RS4 has. Once that has been done, everybody can shut the hell up about how unreliable they think the timing system is.
While I agree, JHM’s solution works for now. The majority of the problems are with the lower left guide so that gives them time to develop a complete replacement. If they even decide to go that route. Most of the local people to me are scared off at the price of a timing service even with me doing it so it may be a hard sell to get people to pay a few hundred more for guides that will out last the rest of the engine.
It is really amazing that you didn’t have bent valves CV.
I said the same thing when I saw it. Its crazy that with the chain like that it didnt jump and do more damage. And As CV pointed out. There is a big groove mark so you know it was like that for a while… Crazy
Wow, that’s brutal :o
I was doing well there for a little bit and then just slipped off my updates. I’m back and here is some more of the fun.
Last we left off, I was taking down the full timing system and doing a full inspection.
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Nothing too suprising about the condition of the parts here. It was time to look further into the adjustment unit.
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When you break down the adjuster you will see that the pin is pushed up by a spring and a small biscuit that holds it in place. No real surprise here that the spring was worn-out and the biscuit was broken and cracked appart.
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It wasn’t a big issue as the JHM timing kit comes with their replacement for this and the spring.
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Clean out the old seat, install the new spring and biscuit and you’re ready to start putting it back together.
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Drop everything back in and install the new JHM sprocket.
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When you put in the spring and biscuit what is that pushing up? It helps keep this pin up and this pin pushes into the hole on the back of the sprocket.
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After you reassemble the mechanical adjuster unit you can actually test it. I do this by, putting two rods in the bolt holes and rotating the unit to get the pin to pop into the sprocket hole.
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This is an easy test to do and it just helps let you know everything is working properly.
Now that you have your mechanical adjuster rebuilt I like to always go and test the electronic adjuster units.
Here is how I do it. First, you need to remove the electronic unit from the base.
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When removed it should look like this.
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From there you’ll need to get a 5v electronic source. What the goal is, you’re looking to add voltage to see if the electronic unit has full range and that it isn’t failed. It wouldn’t do much good if you rebuilt the mechanical adjusters and had failed electronic units.
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When you run the test the results are simple to see. You will notice there is or isn’t a piston that moves up and down the length of the unit. If you get full range of movement you have a good unit. If you don’t have full movement or just don’t have any movement you will need to look further into what’s wrong. Chances are you have a bad unit. I test these on all the cars I’ve done the timing service on. It’s not a bad idea to do but if you don’t have codes or out of range cam adjustments It’s probably not necessary.
What do you use as a 5v power source? Testing the electronic adjuster is next on my list to do
You can get 5v batteries from most battery stores. Or you can reduce the voltage from a battery or 9v battery, That is what I do. Testing is a good thing to do but you rarely see any issues unless you were getting codes. It is a good chance to clean and inspect everything before you put everything back together tho
