Hey guys...

A friend was working on his Audi today. He invited his knucklehead friend over, and they replaced a thermostat.

He popped the belt off the one camshaft after marking where the pulley came off (or so he claimed) got it all back together, won't fire.

He calls me up and asks if I can come over and re-set the timing.
I told him I'd look it up and come over friday.

Any chance setting the timing is a simple task on these things?
Anyone got a nice simple step by step how to set the timing from scratch?

any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

The timing itself, as far as I know is controlled by the ECU, its not manually adjustable like on American cars. The only way to get it set right is to make sure the timing belt is the exact amount of teeth between one point and another. We need to know what engine it is- the 1.8t I4 or the 2.8 V6- to help you further, and I'm sure someone else with more knowledge about timing belt jobs will chime in soon that can tell you the exact specifications about how to make sure it is in the exact position.

 

I know it's a V6, so I guess it's the 2.8L

thanks

 

The problem is the indexing of the motor. They should have realized that educating themselves beforehand just might have been a good idea. The V6 needs cylinder 3 at TDC on the compression stroke before disassembly begins. This will flat-spot the cams and they won't spin when the belt is removed. From what I recall there are index marks on the cams themselves as well as corresponding marks on the cam retainers that allow them to be lined up (they'll have to check whether cylinder 3 has all its valves closed though - it should. If not the cam is 360 degrees out of phase). There's a mark on the crank pulley and an indicator on the pulley backplate to align the crank. That'll get them going.

They need to realize it's an advanced interference engine and the same acceptable level of reckless abandon that you can get away with on a 91 Dodge Caravan doesn't apply here - missteps can be very costly, very quickly.

 

Oops.... you be in trouble now...


look in the DIY section at Audiworld for a write up on the v6 timing.

 

thanks for all the info guys, Hopefully with all this information I can get this figured out for him, and be the hero again! LOL

 

Voodoo.