My 98 A4 2.8l recently had a timing belt slip 12 teeth on the crank gear. The idler pulley prematurely failed after less than 20,000 miles of use. The car had 0psi compression on all 6 cylinders and I found most of the valves are bent. The car only has 100k miles on it so I was hoping to bring it back to life rather than scrap it. At the same time, I can't afford to pay someone to fix this so I am going to do my best to repair it myself. I've seen people pull the valves and clean/re-seat them on a 1.8 20v head, as well as pretty much any other cylinder head I've ever seen, but I can't figure out how to remove the valves on these 15v 2.8l heads!?! I even tried cutting a valve out and inspecting it further, but it looks like the valve stem is machined into place, there's no way to compress the spring and just pop the "lock half ring" out(I don't know the correct name), there is no ring it's just solid. I put it on a shop press and it won't budge.

Anyway, I went to the boneyard and robbed a set of heads off a 2000 A6 with 297k miles. I decided I am going to spray the used heads down with some gumcutter to clean the carbon off, and I'll just hope that they still seat well after almost 300kmiles of use. The heads don't have any signs of warping. The tensioners seem to be nice and tight and everything is fairly clean with no buildup.

This will be my first ever head/ head gasket replacement. I'm going to replace the chain tensioner seals and cam seals/caps while I can easily get to them. Clean the head surfaces and block surfaces really well, install the new head gaskets, tighten the heads down and go from there. I know I'll have to pour some oil on the cams and chain before putting the valve covers on and firing it up. I plan on buying http://www.ebay.com/itm/98-05-Volkswagen-Passat-Audi-A4-A6-Quattro-2-8L-DOHC-AHA-ATQ-Head-Gasket-Set-/261111985001?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item3ccb7cb369&vxp=mtr I have a new belt, tensioner, and idler pulleys to install. The water pump is 20,000 miles old and I didn't plan on messing with it. Is there anything I'm missing? Anything I should or shouldn't do? Any suggestions are appreciated. Thanks!

 

It sounds like you have it pretty much in hand. I'm assuming that you verified the engine code on the donor is the same as yours (should be an AHA motor in your car). I'm pretty sure a 2000 A6 has the ATQ engine. That may be ok - I don't know if the heads are different or not but you need to verify that before you go any farther. You'll need new head studs too - they're torque-to-yield and need to be replaced.

 

The valve covers were the only thing I noticed that was different, the heads seem to be identical.
I didn't realize the bolts were torque-to-yield, so I'll order some of them. Thanks.

 

Does your car have the cylinder heads with the oil line on top of the cam bearing caps? There are 2 models of cylinder heads. 1 with oil lines and 1 without. Can these be interchanged with each other? Same engine code etc... I have had no luck in confirming this. thanks