Hey Boys and Girls,
Looking for some advice.
The short version of the story is that I just replaced the timing chains, tensioners and guide rails on my 1.8 '08 plate A3. It's the BZB engine. I've put everything back together, turned it over and it fired up fairly quickly but is running like a sack of nails. OBD tool is telling me I have misfires on 1, 3 and 4. Tried removing, cleaning and refitting coil packs and plugs, same result. Yellow check engine light is flashing as is oil light. Oil level is looking good from the dipstick. Turning is over with the plugs out sounds lovely and clean, no rattle at all.
Where should I start to try and work out what's up?
The longer version...
A couple of years ago my A3 "died", I drove it home at lunchtime, was running fine then I came to go back to the office and it sounded horrible, metal on metal kinda bad. AA came out and failed to work out what was up. Got it towed to my local garage who quoted me £2.5k to "maybe fix it but no guarantee".
I have a bit of warehouse space so got it back here and over the last 18 months have (slowly) worked through to the point where I was fairly sure it was the timing chains. There was no compression on 1 but I couldn't see any damage to the piston using my mates borescope thingy. During this process a friend (the one with the scope) helped me remove the "rocker cover" which turned out to be probably a silly thing to do (the cover is also holding the cam shafts down...) but hey, 20:20 vision is awesome right.
Ordered a replacement timing chain kit from ebay and got everything back together yesterday. Fired really easily and started running but as mentioned above, it sounds like a sack of nails and the (borrowed) obd tool is telling me it's missing on 1,3 and 4.
I'm far from an expert (obvs...) but I was SURE I had got the timing marks right and checked the distances from the top guide to the in and ex cams, it all looked good. I can't quite work out if there is a way to get the timing wrong that would affect 3 of the 4 cylinders but that one of them would consistently be ok. Obviously my assumption is that I made a mistake but it's an absolute PITA getting to the timing covers on that engine so wanted to check other options before I commit to stripping it back down again....
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!
Looking for some advice.
The short version of the story is that I just replaced the timing chains, tensioners and guide rails on my 1.8 '08 plate A3. It's the BZB engine. I've put everything back together, turned it over and it fired up fairly quickly but is running like a sack of nails. OBD tool is telling me I have misfires on 1, 3 and 4. Tried removing, cleaning and refitting coil packs and plugs, same result. Yellow check engine light is flashing as is oil light. Oil level is looking good from the dipstick. Turning is over with the plugs out sounds lovely and clean, no rattle at all.
Where should I start to try and work out what's up?
The longer version...
A couple of years ago my A3 "died", I drove it home at lunchtime, was running fine then I came to go back to the office and it sounded horrible, metal on metal kinda bad. AA came out and failed to work out what was up. Got it towed to my local garage who quoted me £2.5k to "maybe fix it but no guarantee".
I have a bit of warehouse space so got it back here and over the last 18 months have (slowly) worked through to the point where I was fairly sure it was the timing chains. There was no compression on 1 but I couldn't see any damage to the piston using my mates borescope thingy. During this process a friend (the one with the scope) helped me remove the "rocker cover" which turned out to be probably a silly thing to do (the cover is also holding the cam shafts down...) but hey, 20:20 vision is awesome right.
Ordered a replacement timing chain kit from ebay and got everything back together yesterday. Fired really easily and started running but as mentioned above, it sounds like a sack of nails and the (borrowed) obd tool is telling me it's missing on 1,3 and 4.
I'm far from an expert (obvs...) but I was SURE I had got the timing marks right and checked the distances from the top guide to the in and ex cams, it all looked good. I can't quite work out if there is a way to get the timing wrong that would affect 3 of the 4 cylinders but that one of them would consistently be ok. Obviously my assumption is that I made a mistake but it's an absolute PITA getting to the timing covers on that engine so wanted to check other options before I commit to stripping it back down again....
Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated!