What Is A CamShaft Tensioner Leak Help

[Eric 2.7]

[Eric 2.7]

First of all, get Bentley if you don't have it.

There are good writeups on removing and replacing valve cover gaskets here and on audipages.com, so I won't rehash that.

Once you have the valve cover off, you need to apply your 3366 tool to compress the adjuster. The picture shows the tool in place. Careful not to compress it too far because apparently you can damage the adjuster. If you do, they are $400 something to replace. Once it is compressed, remove the (4) screws holding the adjuster down. One is inside the valve cover. You should be able to get enough slack in the chain to lift the adjuster and get the old metal gasket and rubber half moon piece out.

Now comes the tricky part. One compromise you are making by doing this my way is it is much harder to get the mating surfaces clean without totally removing the adjuster. I used many Q-tips and orange cleaner to get both the head and adjuster surfaces completely clean and dry. This is essential to preventing a reoccurrence of leaks.

The gaskets I bought from ECS had sealant pre-applied to the right spots.

Install the new gaskets making completely sure to correctly seat the rubber piece first and then install the metal gasket. Install the adjuster and torque the screws per Bentley spec.

It can be difficult to see what you are doing so use of a bright light and mirror helps quite a bit.

It has been about a year since I did this, so I may have forgotten some trivial parts, but that's the gist of it.

The standard way of doing this job (Bentley included) is to remove both camshafts. This is more involved since you have to loosen the toothed belt and lock everything in place.

I believe that another method is also possible, but I have not heard of anyone doing this. It should be possible to remove only the intake camshaft in order to get enough slack in the chain to totally remove the adjuster. This would be easier since you wouldn't have to touch the timing belt. I can't confirm that this would work, and obviously you'd have to carefully mark the sproket and chain when removing the intake camshaft.

Hope this helps.

• 3366 tool

[bud4ya]

Is that thhe timing chain there in the pic?

[Barty]

Thanks a lot! This will help me quite a bit. I have a small leak from that area. I found out that it leaks more in cold weather, but does not really leak now in the summer. Also replacing the breather valves seemed to help. Plus, I cleaned the breather tubes so there is not chance for too much pressure under the valve cover. However, if the leak worsens, I will probably follow your directions and do it.

[Eric 2.7]

The cam adjuster moves up and down to vary the chain distance between sprokets changing the intake cam timing. The exhaust cam is directly driven by the timing belt so that timing is fixed.

[absolutcq20v]

• http://forums.audiworld.com/a6/msgs/616641.phtml