I bought this 01 A4 1.8 with Auto last week not knowing why it was not running. It turned over but wouldn't start. Upon further inspection, I found 3 camshaft caps that were pretty worn due to lack of oiling and so I pulled the oil pan (PITA) to check and see if I need just a new head, or a bottom end too.

So far all the rod bearings look great but there is one Main Cap bearing that is scorned pretty bad. The crank looks good and the cap is fine, just the bearing looks terrible. See picture below

Can/should I just replace the main bearing and put a new head on it or should I replace the whole engine? I was planning on flushing the engine a few times to remove any debris from the oiling system before running it. The car only has 74k mile on it and I hate to spend all that money if I don't have to.

What do you guys think, are these engines tough and will it recover with new bearings, or should I start over?

Audi Owner for 1 week and counting.......Need motor




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Sorry, I just realized I posted to the wrong forum.

Admin, can you kindly move this post to the Audi B5 1.8 Tech forum?

Thanks

 

I would want to find the cause for the oiling problem first. It is a lot of workand costlyto rebuild an engine having rebuilt a few of them myself. I would look for a good used engine first. B.