My Audi is broken! *red hot engine failure action*

[Lankytim]

Oops......

Might not be as bad as I thought, then again I'm pretty sure its terminal.

On Saturday I drove up to Barrow in Furness with the wife on Saturday to visit friends. Everything went fine. I did notice a little "tinkle" on start up which I put down to a noisy hydraulic tappet, it went away after a few seconds anyway. After a day chatting with said friends (mostly about cars!) It was time to go home. Said our goodbyes and got in the car to drive home, started the engine- fine, but then it cut out after about 5 secs of running. Went to restart, no compression! Engine just whizzed over

Removed the timing belt cover and the cam belt tensioner had fallen to bits, causing the belt to fall off. Doh! It looks like the "tinkle" id heard earlier was the rivets holding the two halves of the tensioner together slowly giving up the ghost. Luckily a neighbour had an arc welder (he had a few funky WW2 military recovery trucks too!). The tensioner was welded together and together with the belt was refitted to the stricken Audi.

Got it all timed up.. nothing. Compression was there but there but it just wouldnt run! Seemed to have a tight spot too. There was a bit of confusion on how to actually time it up. We found a mark on the top pulley and the front of the cylinder head and a notch on the bottom pulley and an arrow on the bottom cam cover. Hope that was right!

Spoken to a couple of people from this board and a guy "who spoke to his brother whos a VAG specialist" and theres mixed opinion. Some say its definately an interference engine and cam belt failure will result in bent valves and others say the valves should be fine. Either way we couldnt get it to run. We managed to blag a lift back to Stoke and the Audi has been abandoned up in Barrow! Its being recovered next Saturday by a mate. In the meantime hes going to have another go at getting it running.

If the valves are bent at the very least it proabbly needs a new head. Its possibly worth replacing the whole lump with a 2L unit from a passat or golf for a little extra powah (as opposed to no power)

Moral of the story... If you hear a tinkle from the front of the engine that possibly could be the tensioner, but its probably just a tappet- check it out!

Does anyone on this board actually know for sure how to time up a 4 cyl 8v "golf" engine or wether the valves really are bent???

Does anyone have a cheap 2L engine for sale??

[BenzBoy]

Bad luck dude. I've got no clue about these engines... although I'd have thought you'd have heard more noise than that little "tinkle" if pistons had hit valves?

[dubzi]

Had a 1.8 Passat a few years ago and the timing belt stripped it's teeth on start up. I removed the head to check for damage and there was none. Refitted head and new belt, ran fine.

As for timing:
The crankshaft pulley has a V mark on it, that's the notch you found. The intermediate shaft and camshaft have centre punch marks on them.
With no1 cylinder @ tdc, centre punch mark on the intermediate shaft should line up with the V notch on the crankshaft pulley and the centre punch mark on the camshaft pulley should line up with the edge of the cam housing.
If it's all right your dissy will be pointing at no1 plug lead position and the cam lobes on no1 cylinder will be pointing roughly at 11 O'clock and 1 O'clock. If you can see through the hole to the timing marks on the flywheel, that should be pointing @ tdc. Unfortunately on my Golf I can't see them as I think the clutch has been put in wrong!

Edited to make things clearer on reading it back!

[Lankytim]

Jul 13, 2008 10:29:04 GMT BenzBoy said:

Bad luck dude. I've got no clue about these engines... although I'd have thought you'd have heard more noise than that little "tinkle" if pistons had hit valves?

The tinkle was the cam belt tensioner rattling as it fell apart. I didnt notice any valve-piston noise as such, but I don't think you do in cases like these.

I forgot to mention, to put the icing on the cake as I was tinkering I noticed some little curse word has keyed the drivers side.

Not a good day all in all. Ive found out I do a good Basil Fawlty impression though, complete with knuckles in mouth, funny walk and whining noises.

[Lankytim]

Jul 13, 2008 10:32:12 GMT dubzi said:

Had a 1.8 Passat a few years ago and the timing belt stripped it's teeth on start up. I removed the head to check for damage and there was none. Refitted head and new belt, ran fine.

As for timing:
The crankshaft pulley has a V mark on it, that's the notch you found. The intermediate shaft and camshaft have centre punch marks on them.
With no1 cylinder @ tdc, centre punch mark on the intermediate shaft should line up with the V notch on the crankshaft pulley and the centre punch mark on the camshaft pulley should line up with the edge of the cam housing.
If it's all right your dissy will be pointing at no1 plug lead position and the cam lobes on no1 cylinder will be pointing roughly at 11 O'clock and 1 O'clock. If you can see through the hole to the timing marks on the flywheel, that should be pointing @ tdc. Unfortunately on my Golf I can't see them as I think the clutch has been put in wrong!

Edited to make things clearer on reading it back!

Thats not what we did! (well, we did some of it correctly) Maybe the engine isnt totalled afterall. Ive been told that the 1600cc unit isnt interference and the 1800cc unit definately is. Just got to get it timed up correctly first I guess!

[mercmad]

Jul 13, 2008 10:34:31 GMT Lankytim said:

Jul 13, 2008 10:29:04 GMT BenzBoy said:

Bad luck dude. I've got no clue about these engines... although I'd have thought you'd have heard more noise than that little "tinkle" if pistons had hit valves?

Not a good day all in all. Ive found out I do a good Basil Fawlty impression though, complete with knuckles in mouth, funny walk and whining noises.

Hopefully you won't have to listen to the sound of sucking teeth as you learn to cope with high engine repair bills ......

[Lankytim]

Theres only so high the engine repair bill can go before its counteracted by the high price of scrap!

My mate up there said hel get it all timed up with a new belt and tensioner, he refused to accpet any money other than the cost of the parts. Nice fella

[Lankytim]

Tracked down a nice Audi 80 2 litre engine thats apparently a straight swap. Just got to repatriate the 100 from Barrow in Furness to Stoke on Trent!

Just bought a nice set of wheels for it too. I forgot about the snipe I had!

[dubzi]

Jul 13, 2008 19:46:34 GMT Lankytim said:

Tracked down a nice Audi 80 2 litre engine thats apparently a straight swap. Just got to repatriate the 100 from Barrow in Furness to Stoke on Trent!

Just bought a nice set of wheels for it too. I forgot about the snipe I had!

Engine will but not the peripherals. You've got that strange arrangement where the brake servo is powered from the power steering pump on the 100. I'm sure it will all swap over though along with the brackets. Manifolds might be different too but as you have the other one it can all be swapped.

[Lankytim]

Yes id read that pretty much nothing was useable, id have to strip the engine down the the block and reattatch all the 100 specific stuff. I might have to use the new distributor though.

[dubzi]

Why not take the opportunity to put a "proper" engine in it? A 100 needs a 5 pot, you know it makes sense!

Lot of work though, how about 16v or G60?

[Lankytim]

I had thought about a 5 pot, but they're so cheap I could just go out and buy one instead of creating a hideous half arsed pile of scrap. I was seriously considering handing over more cash and buying the 5 pot 100 avant thats for sale on this very forum. If it had been a manual I may just have done!

As for fitting a 16V or G60 lump, its a great idea but I need to get this car on the road ASAP.

Ive been told that on these 8v VW lumps the hydraulic tappets often take the brunt of the damage rather than the valves, and they're easy to change so theres still hope!

[Lankytim]

Right...

Its all been timed up correctly, turn the key... pop pop wheeze (the Audi not me)

Looks like its bent valve city in there. Not checking out the cambelt and tesnioner is a mistake ill only make once.

I'm using my pushbike for work at the moment. I bloody reek of BO!

[dubzi]

Are you 1000% sure that it was timed with no1 @tdc? It's so easy to line up the TDC mark and it be no 4.

Failing that - looks like time to bang the 2l in!

[Lankytim]

Ill have to make triple sure but I think it is.