well...... yesterday at about noon i started tearing down the s4 to change the valve cover gaskets/ cam seals/ and of course the leaky *** tensioner gaskets.... the whole front clip need to come off because i have the APR Bi Pipe and the damn awsome thing is one piece all the way down to the turbo piping....no big deal, front end comes off in like 15 minutes anyway...except the only thing that sucks is having to drain the coolant when you have nothing to drain it into, lol... so all is going well, got bank 1 done (one with cam tensioner close to firewall)...

starting on bank 2 (drivers side) when my buddy drops a small bolt and it falls into the turbo inlet, lol! ....the one day i don't have my magnet.... so he headed to a local parts store to find something... i was just kickin it cleaning off years of caked oil and grime from these oil leaks....

soon after my buddy had to take off for a family dinner ( getting close to 5 now) ...and i'm thinking i better stop trying to clean so much and just get the car done =)

...it starts getting dark out and i realize (im working at my buddy's shop) i'm working in an area with no lighting! ....so i set out to find a drop light and extension cord.....nothing, lol... i had one small yet powerful flashlight with me (and the charger, thank god) with a clip to stick it to the bill of my hat....

so it was a very interesting night working in the dark to finish with only a small flashlight...having to recharge the battery every 2 hours....


Back to bank 2...... just a heads up on that sides cam tensioner.... you litteraly just about HAVE to take off the timing belt to change this sides gasket.... the cam tensioner is guarded by a timing cover (metal) because on bank 2 the cam tensioner is in the front of the vehicle..... i thought this was going to be the end of my night..... but i gave it a shot with out taking the timing belt off.... i had literally just enough room to slide the gasket in and somehow miraculously actually got it into its correct sitting place with needle nose pliers and a long flat head screw driver....

....all in all i got all the work done last night except for the cam seals that require the cam gears having to come off..... finished at 10:30.... and car has been running great!

time to heads to the canyons!


...i would have documented with photos but my phone was dead and i wasn't about to clean my greasy *** hands everytime i wanted to take a pic with my nice camera.... i think my buddy who was there with me earlier took some with his phone... i'll post them up later...


...so if there is a point to my post here, it's be prepared to take off the timing belt to complete all these gaskets ( cam seals/ valve cover/ cam tensioner)

 

Funny story!

I'm working on this right now. I got the drivers side done but the passenger side is being difficult. On my particular model (2000 s4) there is a vacuum canister that sits over the back side of the valve cover that I can't get the cover past. How did you manage to pull this off? Any tips?

 

hmm... i don't remember anything on that side that was an issue....mine is a 2000 s4 too...can you take a quick pic?

 

Sounds like you had some fun. I'll be doing my second one in a couple weeks. what t-belt did you go with? i went with the ecs kit again, but this time it has a gates belt.

 

This is the drivers side. I didn't take a pic of the passenger side but its basically the same. The canister in question is the silver disc near the firewall. It has a grey hose that is blue inside running to it. I was able to get the drivers side done because I broke the nipple a little and it allowed me to sneak the cover past. The passenger side hangs over quite a bit more and none of the tutorials online even mention this canister.

I'm on my phone so if the pic doesn't work I'll try again later.

 

 

Pditty112 your intake manifold says your a 01.5+ s4. its the newer/updated one.

 

Fonzo thanks for the help but its definitely not an 01 or 01.5.

It has all of the 2000 indicators as described on this page:

Do i have a 2001 or a 2001.5 s4 - Audi S4 Forum

Possibly a newer engine or manifold was put in but I don't have any evidence to indicate that.

Anyway that doesn't help me answer my original question which was simply "how do I get the valve cover past the vacuum canister"?

I was actually able to figure it out and I wanted to share on here how I did it incase other people out there have run into this same problem. In all honesty it was actually pretty easy and I should have done it on the drivers side to prevent myself from breaking the nipple on that side as well.

Tools needed:
Ratchet (I actually bought a tiny "toolworks" ratchet at advance)
5mm allen driver head attachment
An allen wrench won't fit

Turns out the vacuum canister is mounted to what appears to be an oil return line that runs, from the head, back into the engine block. This is a cast alluminium pipe that is sort of "S" shaped and has some raised writing on it. This pipe is attached to the enigne by three 5mm allen bolts. Two at the bottom going into the block and one at the top connecting it to the head. Space is limited so I had to pick up what must be the tiniest ratchet I've ever seen. I first removed the top bolt and then loosened the bottom two without actually removing them so that I wouldn't have to struggle to get them back in. This provided me with plenty of wiggle room to move the canister out of the way and easily get the valve cover gasket off. My car has been parked for a week (I've only worked on the car for about 4-6 hours total) while I've worked on this project. The pipe/line did not leak anything so if it was an oil line all of the oil had drained back into the oil pan before I disconnected it.

Hopefully this helps anyone out there that may also run into this project. Overall I would say that this job is pretty easy to do. I could probably get both sides done and repaired in just a few hours now that I have been through it once. I've actually found this car to be very easy to work on. All of the parts came apart very easily and have gone back together without a hitch. I would highly recommend reading the DIY and using a ratchet with a flexible head though.

I wasn't able to get it completely back together last night because I was running out of light and wanted to make sure I didn't miss anything. If anything comes up I will post an update.

Sorry for hijacking your post jetspeed!