Changed my own Cambelt 1.4 TDI this weekend!

rogercat

Member
I'd been waiting for a year to go near Audi Stoke for a cambelt change on their offer but I lives miles away... so I bought the parts and did a good job this weekend. My local Audi garage wanted £499 with the water pump, I got the cambelt and tensioner/s for £75 (VAG spares) and a water pump for £18 with metal impellor (Euro car parts). It had reached 65K on a 2001... ouch.

If you've tinkered with cars before and have a good socket set, trolly jack etc you might as well do it yourself rather than use an independant that's never touched an A2 before. It's all about understanding how the bits come of, it's not messy and once everything is removed there is good access. 95% of it is done from the top so you hardly needed to get under it.

I printed all the info from a service DVD, I decided to make my own fanbelt removal tool and cambelt tensioning tool just using a piece of builders metalwork with bolts through it (could add picture). If I was doing it again i'd....

1) I'd buy a small, quality torque wrence as many of the bolts are only 20 to 30 NM and rather than overtighten it is best to tighten exact and use some blue locktite thread holder. Some of the large clips were awkward so a special tool for them or a seletion of mole grips / pliers.
2) Marking the TDC on Cam and crank with tippex and cutting the old belt of worked fine it didn't move at all when changing belt.
3) The Audi DVD was not very clear on where the 4mm tensioning measurement is, it's is between the top of the hydraulic housing and the flat piece of metal attached to the circular tensioner. Double check the gap stays around 4mm even after turning the engine by hand a few times.
4) The crank pully had some 6mm allen key nuts that were tight I'd make sure you have quality ie chrome vandium type tools an a variety of 1/2" socket extensions especially small ones.

As for time... I'd allow at least 4 hours maybe 6 hours. Waterpump was very easy maybe just 5 minutes extra. When refilling system theres a drain air vent in pipe near radiator.

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As requested here's a picture of my Fanbelt (OK Auxillary Drive) tool combined with the cambelt too1. It's a 12" piece of builders strapping the Fanbelt tool just used standard holes and worked very well. The cambelt one required smaller holes that I had to drill myself @ 18mm between centres and should have a 'V' cut out between them so you can get a spanner onto the tensioning nut.

Its a bit late but I'm confused about the need to lock the oil pump, as it's not conected to the cambelt ?? I didn't lock it as I was only changing the belt and did not move anyything before adding the new belts and once the new belt was tensioned it seemed a perfect match between the cam tippex and the crank tippex markings ??View attachment 2107
 
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Great news rogercat, thanks for the write up summary. I'll take a closer look at the clips before I begin. What was the tools looking like that you made? Looking like any original Audi tools?

I'm just 5000 km into mine but as I most likely will have to lift the engine head to replace the gasket I'll do it all like you so I get back on 0. My pup's up for pressure testing each cylinder in the coming days so I'll get it black on white.
 
well done

good job roger cat
i think a lot of members will be thining of doing it themselves soon It is a matter of being careful. bought a timing kit for vag engines when thinking of being careful myself. I will have do mine at xmas probably when it will be on 56000miles
Was it vag parts for the belt and tensioner and euro car parts for the wter pump?
Regards

Paul
 
Hi!
I share your joy in doing things myself! I am always satisfied when i save so much money! I have never had my Audi in a VAG workshop under my ownership!

I have made two cambelt changes on thease engines. But it was the 1.2TDI, but i guess they look pretty similar. The first one was on a WV lupo 3L i had before my A2.
At that time i did the change without the vag tools. And I must say it worked without problems. The thing that was difficult was to tighten the big roll that should be held with a special tool.

The second time I borrowed the crankshaft locking tool and the tool for aligning the cam(injectors) from a friend that works at a VAG center in Sweden.
I did it as the first time, but the locking pin for the camshaft wasnt 100% aligned with the hole when the cambelt was fitted. I had to adjust the camsprocket position a couple of times before i got it to align perfectly.

The point of this is that if the cam belt is a little shorter or longer than the original belt, it could make the injection/cam angle a bit off.
I did not notice any differance on my Lupo 3L though.

For the 1.2TDI i have used two different cam belts. Gates got a standard rubber belt, and Dayco supplies a teflon coated one :)
 
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