Author: Reeves Little

Approaching the point of no return…

Today I took the next step towards the end goal, I started disassembling the A4. Today I took off the front bumper cover and drained the washer fluid and oil.

Time invested, 3 hours.

Today was a combination of working on plumbing for the 2.7t and preparing the 1.8t for removal.

I started with the fraying diverter valve hose. The passenger side hose was brand new… why didn’t the shop that replaced that also replace the aging part from the driver’s side?

I also started removing the hoses for driver’s side turbo in prep for putting the turbos back on. When I removed the turbos it was incredibly difficult to get into the hoses with the turbos in place. I’m currently planning to remove the turbos and their feeder lines from the engine to install the oil and coolant lines.

Finally I did a compression test on 1.8T engine in prep for removing then selling it. I took pictures and videos in the hope it would speed the sale of the engine if folks new it was in good health, well maintained and low mileage.

Time invested, 2 hours on hoses, 30 minutes on compression test… and 2 hours on getting compression tool back out of the engine (previous spark plug change hadn’t been done with anti-seize, I need look back at my records and never go back to that shop).

When I did the timing belt I didn’t loosen the camshaft sprockets. It wasn’t that I didn’t have the tools, I did. I had even loosened them to replace their seals. Well, turns out that if you tighten them down too early then the belt tension doesn’t get distributed around the loop.

So, after hand testing the belt to be sure the alignment was correct it was off by a few degrees. I hoped it was close enough. I asked around the internet, hoping it was close enough. It clearly wasn’t close enough. I went back through the instructions, pulled the sprockets loose and immediately the belt load evened out. Turns out following instructions saves you a bunch of time.

I also spent time evaluating the various vacuum, air injection and fuel hoses. A number of them require replacing, but I’m not entirely sure what to order to deal with some of the frayed and cracked hoses. I may have to use my phone a friend.

Time invested, 2 hours.

I started off my work today with a bunch of research into Oetiker clamps. These clamps are the special, single use clamps which Audi (and other manufacturers) use all over the engine, especially on high pressure systems like fuel lines. There are a number of hoses I need to replace as well as hoses I had to break the old clamp to remove from the car. I spent about 15 minutes going through the engine compartment taking stock of the sizes I’d need… and then two to three times that amount of time online trying to find the most economical way to order multiple sizes in less than lots of 100.

After spending too much time shopping for parts, I dry-fit the turbos to the engine. I wanted to make sure they were lined up correctly on the exhaust manifolds and that I had all the right parts to put them together correctly. The turbos from XSPower came with a great supply of needed gaskets and crush washers, but I found the stock banjo bolts were too short to get the thread to catch with new washers from XS. Looks like I’m going to need to do some research (do I need new, longer bolts, different washers or do I flatten the new ones a bit?).

Time invested: 3 hours

New parts arrived today from XSPower. Time to start putting some shiny new parts onto my old engine.

Valve covers went back on today.

All the seals are done, so it’s time for the valve covers to go back on. After double-checking the torque on all the bolts I applied gasket sealer to the recommended corners, put on fresh gaskets and then put the valve covers back on.

Moving from the top of the engine to the front I put on the new timing belt tensioner and idler roller. I’ll confess, getting the timing belt back on was much more of a chore than expected. There is not much space around the shroud, so the belt has to slide in perfectly straight or it binds up. There is no slack in a new belt so it was a struggle to get in. I’m not sure I would have been able to do this with the engine in the car.

Along with putting in the timing belt I replaced the crank bolt. I found it fascinating that the bolt actually stretches from the torque applied to it during it’s time in the engine.

If you are doing your own timing belt, I found the ECS guide was an excellent reference. Print it out and have it on hand to supplement whatever manual you are using.

To close out the day turned my attention to the passenger side turbo and loosened the exhaust manifold.

Time invested: 4 hours.