Hi, I'm about to change my cam tensioner seal and valve cover gasket. Fron the discussions in the forum, I need to put the engine at TDC however last time I did that was when I changed my timing belt, in which I had to remove everything in front of the timing belt. Do I have to the same thing here or there is other way to set it in a quick way?

Any advice is appreciated.

there is no quick way do it as the picture says that I posted otherwise it could cast more than you think if not lined up right

http://www.audiforums.com/m_478033/mpage_1/key_/tm.htm#478339

You do need to get to near top dead center, or you won't be able to compress the tensioner adequately. What I did was just watch the tensioner while I was turning the crank bolt. You can see the tensioner rise and fall. I stopped when it was at the highest point. I don't believe there is a requirement to be exactly at TDC.

There are two TDC marks under the valve covers inside the engine for proper Cam alignment.

I changed passenger side cam tensioner seal today; however when I moved to the driver side, I found out that the tensioner did not rise as much as the other one at passenger side; I put in the compression tool and I got barely any room to more the cam tensioner around to even pull the steel gasket out; of course I could not swap the rubber gasket either because of this.

Is there a different TDC for the driver side? Or the driver side just won't rise as much? Mine is a 99 A6 2.8L. Thanks for any input.

top dead center is top dead center with respect to the entire engine, not just one side or the other, so no, there isn't going to be a seperate tdc for the other side. i suppose the possibility that the drivers side just doesn't move as much. sorry, i'm definitely no expert on the 2.8s, but hopefully my input will help you a bit.

Turn the crankshaft over a couple times and stop when the tensioner is at the top of its motion,

thanks mpw2.7t, when you did the job, did the same thing happen to you? I'm just wondering why this is happening.

Yes, I had the same thing happen. I don't know how that system works, but I do know that when you turn the crank, the adjuster cycles up and down. If you leave it in the uppermost position, you will get the slack you need to remove the seal and clean the area.

Good luck!

Thanks to everyone. I put the bolts back onto the tensioner assembly, turned the crank shaft, and it did rise up and down. The top position is not on TDC, but somewhat 90 degrees more on the cam shaft.

mpw2.7t, I guess it did not rise up yesterday when I turned the crack shaft was because I had the bolts loose when I did that. Does it make sense? what's driving the tensioner up and down?