Timing Belt DIY for a B7

[gtiedwards]

I watched/helped a friend do his timing belt maintenance on his B6 A4 Avant but I was looking for a DIY on the B7 with the 2.0T and cannot find one.

Is it the same or are there any major differences? I just ordered the "ultimate" kit from ECS and the Bently manual.

I guess it surprises me that I can find anything for my wife's E46 (DIY's) but the B7 seems to have so much less on line.

If anyone knows of "tricky" parts please advise. Otherwise, in a week or two you'll have a DIY with photos on here from me. Or maybe a horror story of me messing up the belt and putting the valves through the head. [:)]

[wrench]

[Msu2312]

eeek good luck!!

[XCELR8]

+1 no thanks.... $ worth handing over to a shop

[illegitimus]

I looked over the B6 DIY and it was fairly straight-forward if you know what you are doing and have the right tools, of course. I'd like to know of any differences as well. That time is creeping up when I'd need to do it or have it done.

[XCELR8]

110K per the Audi manual

[Sharkfin]

^I thought it was earlier than that?

[eMacPaul]

^I thought it was earlier than that?

I think it was initially set at 75k, but they later revised the maintenance schedule to 110k.

[1SICKAUDI]

I would like to see a DIY as well. Creeping over 115k heh

[illegitimus]

I would like to see a DIY as well. Creeping over 115k heh You better do it soon. Check out the DIY for B6.

[gtiedwards]

Yea, 110k seems a bit high. Audi says 110k, performance parts places say 60k because they want to sell more parts, and I've heard practically it should be between 70k-80k.

The whole fact that if it breaks you kill your engine is what is motivating me. Plus I live in Buffalo, NY and am at 62k miles. If I wait until the spring I'll be well into the 90k range. So I'm doing it now while the weather is still warm.

I've looked over the Bentley disk I purchased and the installation seems to be very similar to the B6. The only major difference I see is the belt tensioner. In the B6 tensioner you just pull the tab and the plunger pops out and keeps tension on the belt. On the B7 the tensioner is different and it's more of an offset pulley. It seems to me that you need to torq the pulley until two notches line up. That is what the bentley CD pics show.

I'm going to tackle this job on Saturday or Sunday (which ever day I do not fish). I'll try to get a DIY up next week.

Cheers! [wrench]

[illegitimus]

gtiedwards, if you do manage to do this, please do the DIY or at least outline the differences between B6 and B7.

[gtiedwards]

That seems to be a reasonable enough request. I will try to accommodate that. I'll be going off of memory (from the B6) and the B6 DIY but as long as everything goes well and I have a functional car come Monday you got it.

[:d]

[gtiedwards]

Did the timing belt yesterday. Woke up at 7:15am and the job took me until 2:30pm.

So, I am going to try and post my DIY. It was very similar to the B6 DIY and Bentley manual except for some key things. The timing belt tensioner was the only really "tricky" part. It was very different from the plunger type tensioner on the B6 1.8T.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1588.jpg
So, the first thing to do is to put the front wheels on jacks. Take off the front wheels and make sure the car is secure. Then go into the wheel wells and remove all the Torx 15 screws in the wheel wells. This will allow you to pull back the wheel well flaps and gain access to the bolts you need to remove to take the bumper off.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1589.jpg
Here is a shot of the bentley manual showing what bolts to remove to get the bumper off. You will see that the second diagram shows three nuts but my B7 A4 2006 only had two nuts. You will need an extender and 10mm socket here. Basically for most of this job you will need a 10mm, 13mm, torx 30, 6mm alan and then a ton of various other parts but these do the majority of the work.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1591.jpg
Here is the front cover / bumper removed. All you needed to do was removed the bolts / nuts mentioned above and three large bolts you will see on the top of the cover in the engine bay. They were torx 30 bolts.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1592.jpg
Then remove the actual bumper by removing the two large bolts with a alan (I think it was a 10mm alan). And remove the two horns from each side of the bumper and a 10mm wrench.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1595.jpg
Removed the lights next. They are really easy except one bolt! On the body there is one bolt that is tucked behind the stinking light. I had to use a long 1/4" extender, 10mm socket and then I slid a torx 15 bit on the end of the 1/4" socket drive to get the last bolt.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1597.jpg
Now take off the two black plastic facias on each side of the compressor heat exchanger and turbo heat exchanger.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1601.jpg
Next, unbolt the AC cooler, sensors, brackets, etc. Make sure to not bend the coolant lines, these are for the AC and you must not disconnect them!! All you do is unbolt the supports and swing the AC heat exchanger under the car. I used the coolant / oil catch to keep the cooler from dangling. The removed the bumpers that you can see on the left and right of the radiator. You will have three 13mm bolts and a 10mm nut to remove. Once you have these removed you have to unclip all brackets, wire connection and radiator coolant lines. Then all you have to do is swing the radiator and front support towards the driver side. This will give you full access to the accessory belt and timing belt.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1602.jpg
Here is the easy part, all you need to do is take a wrench and move the accessory belt tensioner to relieve tension from the serp belt. Remove the serp belt.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1604.jpg
Now rotate the engine to top dead center. Then remove the lower pulley. You can see I stripped one bolt and had to replace it.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1605.jpg
Stripped bolt remover. :)

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1606.jpg
Lower pulley removed.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1608.jpg
Timing belt exposed.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1610.jpg
Ok, here is the fun and nerve wracking part. I marked the living stink out of the existing timing belt, pulleys, everything. Then matched it up with the new belt and made sure that I put on the new belt exactly (to the tooth) as the old belt. I then rotated the engine using a breaker bar and 19mm socket to keep making sure that the timing was still correct. I'm told if you are off you can feel the valves hitting the pistons but I didnt want to find out. I cant stress enough how critical this phase is.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1609.jpg
The tensioner was a pain. You install it, make sure the "clip" is inside the groove you see in the picture (back of the tensioner). But do not tighten the main bolt all the way. You use a 8mm alan to light up the arrow and green spot on the tensioner. Then you rotate the engine two revolutions. Make sure the arrow and green spot are still aligned then tighten the main bolt of the tensioner. You will see that it picked up all the slack on the timing belt. This is the critical part of this job. I spent 20 min just rotating the engine, making sure all the markings on the new belt line up to the old ones, making sure TDC kept coming up on both alignment marks. Over and over and over.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1611.jpg
New timing belt on the car, timing belt cover back on.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1612.jpg
Back to reversing the steps. Put on a new serp belt, put the front clip and radiator back on, swung the AC heat exchanger back up, sensor back on, lights, bump stops, align the lights.

http://i470.photobucket.com/albums/rr61/glxedwards/GPE_1614.jpg
Dont forget all the sensors, wiring harnesses, coolent lines, etc. Then fill the reservoir with 2 litres of coolant. I then added another 1.5 litres of water to the coolant. Drove the car around so the car got hot. Then opened up the reservoir again, added more water to bleed the system and was all set.

[TX-A4]

^^^^^^^^

Nice write up, thanks for posting up the pics, + rep.[up]

[Sales@RAI]

good stuff man, slight differences between the B6 and B7

[nramsey]

Nice work. I'm impressed you went for it yourself, not many are brave enough. I've done a timing belt before, but on a non interference engine. I was going to do my B5, but chickened out and had the dealer do it ($700, ouch!)

[Mordaine]

this makes me very confident in doing this myself. how much did it cost you for the new belts and all?

+rep to you and thank you!

[XCELR8]

more power to ya!

[gtiedwards]

I bought the kit from ECS (their "Ultimate Plus" kit). That was something like $225. I also bought the Bentley CD with that kit as well because I was nervous about doing the job. That was another $80. I'm glad I bought the Bentley because it helped with a couple of the tricky parts. I had to switch around from their "engine removal", "bumper removal" and "timing belt" manuals to piece it all together.

I will try to edit these pictures with arrows and such later this week to help with the DIY.

I would like to note that I did not change the lower crank seal that came with the ECS kit, it was the only part I did not tackle this time because I did not have the two required special Audi tools and I'm only at 63k miles. I figured I'll rent them the next time I do the timing belt again at 110k miles.

The dealer told me $1,200 for this timing belt job and my local import shop said $800. I was glad to save $500 doing the work myself. After two days she is still running strong.

[:p]

[Latin Audi]

Finally a write up! Thanks, rep to you [up]