Quote Originally Posted by ametlib View Post
Eighter you have balls or skills . You gonna need both before this is finished.
Ok, first, the lobes on the hollow cams are crimped on the shaft when they are damn hot so blue color is normal. Second, just as the 1st gen. cams for 2,5 tdi the hollow cams had their issues.The lobes actually loosened from the shafts, so the 3rd gen. cams
were solid and replaced the hollow cams ( and I guess it's one of those you have)
About the flange with the damage threads I don't believe it's anything wrong with them, I suspect the problem is that the bolt have a rather big diameter in the front ( and as we all know, there are greasemonkeys out there with a lot of muscles and no torque wrench)
Since you are changing the flange you'll also need a new crankshaft bolt and a timing pin/ counterhold to keep the crank in place when you torque the bolt to approx. 520 nm !!
Thanks again for the comments! I have ordered all the bits I need to replace the flange and also a set of crank and cam seals and a few other gaskets. I also made sure to order anew bolt a per the workshop manual advice. I am currently making up a brace for the crank involving a 90cm long length of 50mm flat bar and some holes drilled to fit over the crank bolt. I thought about just using the crank locking pin but worry that I might end up shearing it.
I will update when I make some progress but I bought the bits I needed from Germany so will probably have to wait 1 week for delivery which is going to slow things up