Ouch, that's not a good thing.

If you set your cam lockers correctly I can't see the cams moving. The question is then what way the crank turned to arrive at its current location. Given how far it is off of TDC, I really can't venture a guess. In theory you should be able to fix this issue by rotating the crank in the opposite direction in which it was moved to TDC while keeping the cams locked in place (Assuming the only the crank moved.)

Remember when doing timing that if you marked your cams and crank you won't see it line up until two full revolutions. Once for compression and once for exhaust. Marking the cam sprockets and the crank sprocket in the future could save you some trouble, as well as anyone reading this thread in the future.

 

I believe what happened is this. When I was loosening the 4 camshaft bolts with old timing belt on, the last bolt on one of the camshaft (after loosining the first three) rotated the crank counter clockwise. Since the camshaft has a quite bigger diameter than crank it was reflected more like 30-40 degrees on crank. I believe I need to loosen the all four camshaft bolts and rotate the crank clockwise till it gets back to the line. Do you think so ?

 

By the way, I have an old vag com cable. I will see if that would help.

 

I can see this happening. However, I believe the cam lock bars are to lock the cams in place so they don't move / pull the belt and cause exactly this problem with the engine's timing system. As such, I would suspect an issue with the cam(s) as well as the crank.

You can certainly try your method of fixing this issue by doing what you described, however I would caution you and tell you that you run the risk of ruining your engine if the crank and all cam sprockets did NOT move in tandem.

Your best bet would be to begin thinking about resetting the crank to TDC and then resetting the cams and valves to their appropriate orientation to reflect the position of each cylinder in order to avoid valve / piston collisions.

 

I see your point. I was talking to one of my friend today. He said that the crank could possibly have moved due to spring load. That makes sense if its the case for Audi's. I just checked the picture I took before removing the old belt but after loosing the camshaft pulleys. Picture shows that crank had already rotated counter clockwise (seen by checking th crank notches, they were where they are now). So, it could have moved while loosening the last camshaft pulley or spring load. This narrow downs the problem to possible solution of rotating the crank clockwise. Then I am planning to place a screw driver into the first cylinder slightly and see the alignment of camshafts and crank. I will rotate the crank gently to see if the screw driver gets to the highest point when the crank and camshafts are aligned. I also need to see if I could rotate the crank at least two rotations without any counter force faced. Thanks for your comments and help again. I will keep you updated.

 

I just wanted to say that. I figured that out last week. I just needed to rotate the main crank counter clockwise back to the line. Anyone having the same issue could simply hand rotate the crank after that to double check.

 

I need to correct that. Indeed, I rotated the crank clockwise back to where it was.

 

This will not be the case for everyone with this issue. You managed to dodge a bullet (Assuming you have started the engine and it ran without any timing issues) Anyone reading this in the future should realize that this may vary from case to case and caution should be used when just rotating the crank when it's no longer at TDC after a timing belt job.

 

I understand. Its best to put the crank lock pin in place as well. I definitely suggest that. Then you would not experience this problem. I tend to not agree with you on st. You can not really damage the valves while hand rotating the crank to make sure there is no interference. That is why I rotated by hand to make sure there is no interfrence. It there was, I would need to rotate the crank 1 full opposite direction.

 

Hello,

I wonder if we have any section where we can share our experience regarding the purchases from any vendor.

Thanks