I have a 98 Audi A6 quattro 2.8L.

I'm working on replacing the valve cover gasket, half moon seal, and cam tensioner gasket as well as a newly discovered broken cam chain pad. This is all on the passenger side of the engine. I have already removed the metal cam caps closest to the driver side and left all of the cam caps alone closest to the passenger side (again, this is all on the passenger side of the engine). I did not put the engine into TDC before removing the caps, as the instructions from the parts store I got did not say to do so, but the forums say I should have. Post #13 here (http://forums.audiworld.com/showthre...708648&page=2#) states I won't be able to compress the adjuster, though I'm not sure how that'll be affected. Am I still a go to continue the process, or did I completely ruin things? Please help!

 

Also to be clear, I haven't changed any of the things I planned to change yet, and I haven't put the cam caps back on yet. I also marked the positions of the camshaft and chain relative to the small arrow on the top of the rear-most cam cap before loosening all of the caps.

 

If nothing moved put the cam caps back on and start over. Follow the instructions.