OK so a lot has been happening over the past weeks...
After thinking "why the hell is this not working" i decided to go ahead and compression test the engine...
1
Dry 150
Wet
2
Dry 190
Wet
3
Dry 45
Wet 45
4
Dry 0
Wet 20
Disaster.
This is when my heart sank and nearly all hope faded to zilch. All i wanted to do is get this thing going, break it in and have a good time. Of course i was expecting hiccups along the way but nothing like this. I was thinking
- have the valves smashed into the pistons
- i'm going to have to get a new set of valves
- i'm going to have to pull the head
- this means i'm going to have to remove the turbo
- to remove the turbo i'll have to drop the sub frame to disconnect the wastegate
- i might as well take the engine out
- can i really be bothered taking the engine out again?
- OMFG what have i done
- who can i think who will want to fix this?
- i should just sell it...
After thinking it through and along with lots of help from local and overseas brains trust i decided to persevere...
I re did the timing and took as many photos to sanity check myself
The thing that was putting me off were the original (ones i bought the car with) TDC marking position... which is looked to be a tooth off (the top red mark on the crank sprocket).
Tricky thing with the cam to cam timing is if the tensioner is not released the links and notches look wrong... thanks to
@<tuffty/> for all the help on that one!
Still... checking the timing doesn't fully explain why there's low to no compression in 3 and 4... so i did this to try and see if these valves had bent or were staying open... looks some of them in the respective dead cylinders aren't seating... i'm still thinking i bent valves
So i was recommended to look into a borescope
Where i freaked out that the indentations were from valve contact but i looked back at my previous photos and to my relief - that's the way they come! And surely enough... 3 and 4 look to not have been firing at all looking all shiny still.
Then I ended up doing this (which actually took a while the very first time in undoing everything as i had to re-learn how to take everything off with the new setup)
Time to fit another tester. This time i wanna check if the chamber is sealed without the cams using the leak down tester. The valve springs should bring the valves back to their seat
IF they are not bent...
So getting the leak down tester on and learning how to use it properly (i was first using it completely wrong which gave me very inconsistent results) i found...
All within pretty much the same spec... HRMMMMM!!!
So with the cams off i decided to check the "new" lifters.
Most of them were able to be squeezed by hand - this is after about 4 runs... all short runs BUT still there should have been oil pressure built up in most of them at least. Here is one out so you can see exactly how much play was in there and how much oil is being released when most of it should stay inside due to the centre of the tappet holding oil and you shouldn't be able to squeeze it down this much
I ended up pulling my old known working listers from the BAM head, serviced them as per this guide "
http://www.audi-sport.net/xf/threads/how-to-rebuild-and-clean-hydraulic-lifters-vag-1-8t.118251/"
Already i could feel the difference between one that can hold pressure and one that just fails...
So in went the refreshed BAM lifters and I set off to re do all the timing yet again. Making sure all the marks line up (mind you this would have been the 5th time in a row to do timing) and making sure they still line up after cranking by hand
... and i got this...
OK so by now i think i've figured it out!!! Let it run to get to temperature and check for leaks etc (my front crank seal PTFE seal had leaked from the very first engine run so i changed that somewhere in the middle of all of this). All looks to be good!
This engine start i was recommended to run the engine from 2 - 3k trying to hold the revs up higher to get oil pumped around and help seat rings, bearings etc...
I let the car cool down a little bit then wanted to check for compression...
*massive sigh of relief* As all those numbers look pretty good to me (and everyone else i showed!!!)
Looks like the lifters that i bought were holding valves open a tad not letting them seat giving me shizenhausen compression in 3 &4.
Now here i am getting all excited that, yes, maybe now i can finally drive the car... BUT
I couldn't get reverse engaged for some reason. The video above is looking through the reverse light switch hole to see if the shifting shaft is engaging the switch which would mean it's engaging the gear.... but it's not! Most of the hole should be covered when it's in reverse. So now i'm thinking... daaammmnnn i'm going to need to pull the gearbox now!
I needed to pull this out to have access to the shifter cable ends - i still can't believe the DV's size!
A little bit more sleuthing led me to re adjusting the shifter cables along along with manually selecting reverse gear without the cables tightened on. I was able to get it to engage in this manner so that means i didn't have to open the gearbox. Thank god! I just had to get the cables adjusted correctly again AND it seemed like the switch was torqued on too tight previously, make the switch block the engagement into reverse. Once the switch was only snugged up it would slip right into reverse very easily.
Some testing while the front wheels were up also show the clutch is engaging as I could get the front wheels spinning when in gear.
So after all of that - dedicating pretty much every spare hour of my weekends to the car (and some mornings before/evenings after work) I can now rest in peace that yes, the engine is working and has good compression and the gearbox and clutch are installed and working right!!!
I've still not yet driven it as i'm now tracking down why my battery keeps running flat (probably doesn't help when i'm been priming the engine all the time and my brakes are super hard exactly like when vacuum assist is broken. I still have some gauges not working that i can investigate ... but they are minor compared to the above!!!