Oil change time again so decided to drop the sump and give it and the oil pickup a clean... fairly common issue in the 20v world so seemed worth a punt considering the old girl is at 208k miles..
The sump can be tricky to remove... there are 4 bolts flywheel side of which the middle two are partially hidden... I used a 1/4 10mm socket on a wobble extension and managed to get these out...
The sump was a little oily...
There is no oil pickup pipe like the 20v's have on this engine... instead its integrated into the plastic windage tray...
Plastic things sat in oil are always fun... especially with high mileage engines... I managed to break off one of the retaining clips as its brittle as you like but got it off to reveal...
...it was then I found the source of the rattle I have had since buying the car...
I was aware of the little 3 pots tendency for the balance shaft chain assembly to fail but wasn't expecting the noise to be this...as you can see in the picture the tensioner pad appears to be pitched over a little at an angle and this is allowing the chain to ride down into the block causing a little wear...
Its been like this for 5yrs and 53k miles so will get the bits together along with a cam belt and get it sorted.. at least I know what the noise is now
Gave the sump an initial clean in the kerosene wash tank...
...followed by a hot wash in the high pressure tank then into the aquablast unit..
Does a good job on aluminium but you really have to make sure its fully flushed to get the blast media out...
Clean off all the old sealant using a non marking flat edge and a bit of scotchbrite... brake cleaner softens the sealant nicely...
Refitted the plastic tray...
Applied sump sealant... and fitted it up...
Refitting can be tricky... I have a solid flywheel and you have to hook the sump into the back of the flywheel to get it past the plastic tray..
The old girl is in need of a little TLC and had planned that for this year... she needs new discs/pads up front, cambelt and now the chain and tensioner doing..
I also have some new glowplugs to fit but kinda dreading attempting to get the old ones out..
That said the engine looks in decent condition from what I could see so hopefully it will hold up for a while longer... I will need to revisit the tandem pump gasket again too as thats started weeping again softening my new coolant hose...
Other things on the 'to-do' list were the engine mounts but seems mine has the stupid expensive alloy gearbox mount so might just source the metal bracket off an early A2 and use a cheaper alternative as its a little 'wobbly' to say the least
Lots of things to do including actually taking some pictures as I have not done anything at all this year but the biggest thing to do is to rebuild the S3's engine as she decided enough was enough last month...
Keeps me busy... lol
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