How to rebuild and clean hydraulic lifters vag 1.8t

Finaly worked out how to rebuild the lifters in my 1.8t. As a lot of people have Helped me out in the past on Audi-sport.net i thought i would contribute to that in making a How to guide. Hope it comes in useful


First off get a thick piece of wood and put a towel down so you don't damage the lifter






Place the lifter on the wood then wrap it twice with you'r towel



Get another peice of wood put it flush on the lifter. Then give it a good wack a few times. some are easy and pop out with a couple of blows but others are a pain and take forever.



Keep checking every couple of blows to see if the little piston has popped out. once it has broke free get a pair of pliars and give it a good pull



Once its out it should look like this. pull the two halfs apart and take the spring out



Then you will end up with this. soke all the bits in petrol for 15 minutes. the middle collet thing has a bearing in it. acts like a 1 way valve to build up pressure. fill this with petrol and press the bearing in a few time with a little screw driver to clean it and make sure its free enough






Once cleaned start by pacing the spring in side the collet thing. lol



then add a few drops of oil. this is so when you first start the car there is already pressure there to stop the spring from been flattened


once you have done that then add the the other piece with the bearing in. make sure you put the bearing facing up.



Once it is in then push down on it and press the bearing in again with your screw driver. this is so it goes in more which makes it easyer to get into the actual lifter and to release any air



Get the other end of you'r hammer and push down hard till you hear it pop in



give it a wipe down

Then it will look like this and jobs a gooden

MUSH said:

Good guide! Did this in my mk2 golf years ago. Shame some of the pics arent so clear.

Click to expand...

Thanks i am still doing them at the minute so i will try and get a better picture. these take forever lol. ive read you'r mk2 thread very interesting

There are 20 all together, 12 on the inlet and 8 on the exhaust side these sit in between the valves and camshaft maintaining zero valve clearance. leading to quieter operation and eliminating the need for periodic adjustment of valve clearance. hope this helps

because these use you'r oil pressure to pump them and they only have a small hole for the oil to go in you tend to get sludgy crap in them. also when they have been taken out they tend to start exspanding by them selves so when you rebuild it you will have valves smashing into pistons lol. so you are supposed to drain them then fit them.

Won't let me edit my post for some reason. but here is a better pic of the piston



and this is a pic of the exhaust lifter the big one. the small one is inlet

cheers mate hope it comes in handy