It is not about holding the cams in place... It is about putting equal tension on all sections of the timing belt without spinning the cams and the crank. Without the tools, it is pretty much impossible to do that. Good luck.

 

your brother and a friend holding on to the cams?????
umm...no

where are you. maybe you can borrow a set.

 

Northeast Ohio near Youngstown/Warren.

 

Well, we got it done. Took 17 hours after a 2 hour mental health break. Turns out my timing was actually slightly off. Spent three hours recounting teeth on the belts, and repositioning them so it would fit. We also ended up making a hand crank for the cams to hold them in position instead of renting the tools. Other than a few hiccups though not too bad, just a lot of work for it lol. Also, found out that I need to replace two CV boots and my rear wheel bearings. Another project for another time here in the next two weeks after I get paid, and pay the mechanic who helped me do this project. Car runs much better, and smoother now though lol.

 

CONGRATS! I started wondering if you guys blew up the dang thing lol.

My main hiccup was stripping the recessed 6mm(?) hex bolt inside the fan clutch bracket. Tried everything from screw extractors, to drilling it out.. only to be saved by the BFH (big friggin' hammer FTW!). Had to hammer an allen key into that S.O.B just to get it off.

Definitely glad to hear that it worked out for you guys though. I bet your face just about turned pale during the first start attempt, lol.

BTW: The cost of that mechanic better be less than the cost of the special tools, or I'll have to kick you in your shin.

Once again, CONGRATS!

 

Yup, I was terrified to start it up. But it went well, and he actually only charged me 225 dollars for everything. So, still cheaper than the security deposit on the tools. Had he not helped me though, we would have destroyed the valves because the timing was off buy one tooth and we had to readjust one of the cams to re-time everything. It was worth it to hire him and have access to his whole garage in the end.

 

Good to hear someone's making progress. Kite09, do you happen to have pic or figure showing the chain roller count on the cams for bank 2 Drivers side. If so, you can PM me or reply in my posting https://www.audiforums.com/forum/aud...6/#post1357955
I've gotten confused with conflicting info. FYI I have a '00 2.7 A6

 

Sorry, I didn't take pictures of the counts. What we did is it put everything in TDC, and then marked positions on the cams and the housings with paint. We also scribed a vertical line into the crank key, at a 90 degree angle to the pipes running below the engine. From our marks we counted exactly 64 teeth from the crank to our marks on the cams, and then 125 teeth in between the two cams.