Oil leak from rear of head

[morgz84]

The car is a relatively rare 2.0 20V ALT petrol engine Passat.


I had a bit of a difficult time recently changing the chain tensioner. The main problem was, lack of documentation anywhere about it. Plenty of Youtube videos on 1.8T or TDI, but none for my engine. It turned out my engine has some massive differences in the job compared to the 1.8T, for example, the camshaft bearings are all part of a large rectangular casting, which had me confused for ages.


At one point during the tensioner job, I tried to get the VVT cam adjuster out. It's three M6 bolts in the back of the head. It turned out I didn't need to remove it after all, but I think I have damaged the gasket trying to pry it (gently) with a screwdriver.


I now have a rather severe oil leak at the back of the head. Such that I get the OIL PRESSURE STOP message without any prior warning. Have put in over 2 litres of cheap Tesco 5W40 in about a week. I have been only driving short distances and keeping oil in the car.


The oil leak appears to be coming from the coolant flange, which does not make sense. It's very difficult to feel around in there and obviously I can only do it when the engine is cold. But the flange is immediately below the cam adjuster so it seems only logical that it is leaking oil from a damaged cam adjuster gasket. Just hope I haven't foobar'ed the device itself because they are expensive, even the repair kits.
I have not found much information about this particular cam adjuster online. There was a thread on VWAudi forum about it, but was inconclusive. From what little information I have gleaned, you just undo the three bolts on the housing, and it just pulls away. However, when I tried before, there was nothing I could do to budge it.


Any ideas anyone?

[Crasher]

There is full documentation on erWin.

[morgz84]

Thanks for that Crasher. How do the printing rights work? Can you to print in bulk? Would I be able to print the full engine manual on a decent laser printer within an hours access?

Also, am I correct in understanding that my ALT engine is an Audi engine, and therefore more prevalent in Audis? I seem to get a lot more luck finding correct engine parts on Ebay using Audi A4 B6 8E5 ALT as part of my search term.

I Appreciate all the helpful advice you give on these forums.

[Crasher]

If I remember rightly you can print to a pdf convertor, I use cute pdf, and it is just a matter of how fast you can do it.

The ALT is an ally block version of the EA113 family and was oddly little used but did find its way into the later 3B Passat

[morgz84]

If I remember rightly you can print to a pdf convertor, I use cute pdf, and it is just a matter of how fast you can do it.

The ALT is an ally block version of the EA113 family and was oddly little used but did find its way into the later 3B Passat

That makes sense, rather than risking a panic if the printer has problems, and save on paper.

I have possibly found the source of the oil leak anyhow. On the right / rear of the head, above, not far from the cam adjuster and coolant flange, I discovered a bolt which I loosened by mistake doing chain tensioner job and didn't tighten back up. Since tightening it properly, I checked the oil again today expecting the stick to be dry, and it was up to full. I have in the past week, been putting in about a litre every two days! It s still up to full after a 30 mile test drive. Hopefully I don't need to interfere with the cam adjuster after all, fingers crossed. I've cleaned it all up down there so I can check for oil there after driving tomorrow.

I'm waiting for a new camshaft position sensor to arrive from Latvia. I reckon I'll be lucky to see it before Christmas. It's currently like driving a Nissan Micra with a bag of builders rubble in the back.

[morgz84]

Hello again everyone.

As I understand it, the cylinder head is going to have to come off in order to remove the VVT device at the rear. I am pretty sure that the oil leak is coming from the VVT device. Also, the car is currently hideously low on power. Takes an entire slip road to reach 50mph on our local dual carriageway, and a good mile or two to reach 70! I have spoken to a company which rebuilds cylinder heads. They have quoted circa £300 to skim the head, get VVT set up correctly, set the cam timing and chain etc. up correctly so that I can simply bolt it back on, ready to go. I think this depends on whether or not I have completely screwed the cam adjuster from trying to lever it off previously. They did say that they will inspect everything and consult with me before doing anything drastic.

My dad thinks £300 is expensive, but I think it is reasonable compared to the cost of writing the car off, especially as I have four recently replaced tyres, and new exhaust front section. The car ran well before I did this job and c0cked around with the cam adjuster. Would you pay this if it was your car? My dad seems all in favour of getting something else and scrapping it, but this seems a bit extreme. To me, it seems to make sense to try and get this sorted. I can't get another Passat estate of the same age and mileage for £300 and I have put so much work into this car. I'm also out of work presently, so don't have loads of spare cash to plough into a new car. Also, I've been having to turn down many job leads due to having a car which can't be relied upon. I've done head gasket job on this car before, so I am not worried about taking the head off and replacing. It's the setting up of the VVT and timing which I am not confident with. I've been driving the car about with a P0341 fault, low power and been chucking oil into it when needed. Of course it might be a bit more than £300 and of course, I will need a new head gasket and stretcher bolts. The car cost me £995 when I bought it at approximately 100,000 miles. Is this car worth saving? I've always found people are very quick to write off a car if it doesn't belong to them! But I would like to get some more opinions on this.