Well i bought a 96 2.8 quattro for 800$ and it needed a hg. The car did not over heat just ate coolant. Some of my friends speculated wether it was the headgasket in the first place. It was changed at 140k and the car has 166k. hmmm well what made me start this was the milky guck when taking off the oil cap (which a friend still says is normal )

Today after getting right tools i loosened and got motor basically where i needed to get it minus a few hickups. 1 stripped a valve cover bolt now im gonna try to attack it with vise grips see if that works. and 2 I cannot find my two audi specific tools the crank holder (pretty sure i don't even need this) and the timing belt tool (another thing i am pretty sure you and get away without using) though the tb tool i can get from a friend so i will be just for safe measure.

Couple questions.
after taking ps pully bolts out how do you recommend getting the pully it self off?


looking at the accesory belt tensioner should i change it out (unsure when it was last changed and cannot find in maintenance records. Is there a way to tell a dying one?)



this is the nasty stuff im talking about. This is in the valve cover breather lines (cannot wait to see the nastiness in the valve covers)



and this is how the car sits as of right now




I will be updating this post as i go. should hopefully be done by tomm but we will see. //

To get that pulley off I took off the whole assembly, it was a tiny pita but I didnt see any other way. As far as that tensioner goes, spin that bearing and see how it sounds. Mine sounded like a bearing in an old skateboard, so I got a new one.

If you can't get that valve cover bolt out, there are special sockets they make for removing stripped bolts, pretty cheap at advanced or wherever. Either way you're gonna need to replace that bolt, so I say do it. Those sockets come in handy all the time so it's worth the investment.

Yea i was told to try vice grip first but ill def buy what your talking about. i am replacing most of the bolts on the motor (all that were rusted) so that'll be taken care of.

With the pulley thats strange i've seen people remove just the pulley i wonder why mines being so stubborn. I'm bringing my rubber mallet tomm so hopefully thats the trick.

That is the trick - just tap at it working your way around the face of it. Keep going around it and it'll loosen and come off. And no, that crap in your breather is not supposed to be there. As for the tensioner, it'd be hard to tell a bad one's spring tension from a good one without a good one on hand to compare it to.

damn, mine mustve just been stuck on there super good n tight. I stand corrected.

Yeah it can be stubborn and a pain but it'll come off. Spraying liquid wrench around the bolt holes and the back side of the pulley can help break up any gunk that is helping to bind it.

definetly suggest getting a new breather hose kit. i just changed mine and my large black valve was completly clogged and changing it all out made a huge difference. you can actually here the air go through the hose now. the kit from ecs sucks. i would suggest getting the kit from blauparts.com

None have it for 12v =\ i was thinking of replacing them with rubber heater hose instead and will be cleaning out where they go into the valve cover.

is there any way to check if the head needs milling/filing?

I have a 96 2.8 12v with a stuck valve. I'm about to remove the passenger cam, and then the head. What order did you use to take off head bolts? Did you use the sprocket locking tool or do you have a non-tool method to hold the sprocket while removing the cam bolt?