1.8t valve seals WITHOUT taking the head off

**Crasher** · 13-07-2023,04:27 PM

I did mine about a year ago as a preventative measure as it was 15 years since I had fitted it (genuine VAG exchange unit) and sent it to Midland Turbo where all our turbo's go. It had a mildly improved build to go with the APR stage 2 remap but nothing silly. To start with you disconnect the front pipe and all the turbo fittings then drop the turbo down onto the drive shaft, then remove the exhaust manifold so you can lift the turbo out. Inspect the manifold to turbo face for cracks. You will need the manifold nuts, head face gasket, turbo gasket turbo bolts (special material), hot bolt paste, manifold to head nuts, downpipe nuts, downpipe gasket, turbo drain to sump gasket, downpipe to silencer sleeve etc... quite an expensive pile of bits that are best bought all genuine from your VW dealer.

**Southside** · 17-07-2023,10:51 AM

Been reading up and watching some vids on how best to do the seals with the head in situ. I'm thinking mark everything up, take the timing belt and cams off. Using the rope in the cylinder method, compress each cylinder by turning the crankshaft and replace both sets of seals and do the same for each cylinder. Once finished, set everything back to the marked position, refit cams and timing belt and we should be good to go. Does that sound good?

**Crasher** · 17-07-2023,12:43 PM

Yes sounds fine expect for the few word missing after "good to go". Then find it still smokes and remove the turbo for rebuild to fix it...

**Southside** · 18-07-2023,01:56 PM

I will rebuild the turbo but for now, I want to tackle the valve seals

Does anybody have the tightening torque settings for the bits I'm removing? Just want to be prepared!

**Crasher** · 18-07-2023,05:40 PM

Sign up to erWin, get yourself set up with some decent disc space and a print to pdf program then download the cars entire dealer level workshop info for €7.

**Southside** · 09-08-2023,07:34 AM

Just going back to this ..... I've started stripping down and the plan was to undo the camshaft sprocket nut and remove the timing belt that way but I forgot about the tensioner. Without removing the engine mount, anyway of avoiding that?

**Crasher** · 09-08-2023,04:13 PM

Which design tensioner? Damper?

**Southside** · 06-09-2023,05:51 PM

Just an update .....
So seals done and no smoke but I still have a smell from the exhaust? The other issue I have now is in the process of stripping everything down, I noticed that the engine mount that's fitted to the side of the block, the 2 holes where the other part of the mount sits, one side has had the threads striped! When I fired up the car first time after I had checked by hand, I can now here a high pitch noise when I rev it? Only thing which I made a mistake with was when I was tightening the camshaft caps. I had the torque wrench set incorrectly but once I noticed, I undone all the nuts and re-tightened them all with the correct setting. Any ideas what the noise might be?

**Crasher** · 07-09-2023,11:45 AM

It is easy to get the lower belt cover in slightly off and this takes a lovely chunk out of the timing belt...

**Southside** · 07-09-2023,01:47 PM

Thought as much! Thank for that @Crasher

So going back to my high pitched noise when I rev the engine, do you think that might have happened when I "overtightened" the cap bolts? I mean I did initially but I undone and done them up to the correct torque even before turning the engine over. I'm thinking I will undo all of them again, this time make sure the camshaft is free, use some assembly lube and do up again. What do you think?