So I am pretty sure I messed up the timing on my A6 2.7T

[BStim]

I have been working on doing a timing belt and valve cover gasket job on my 2003 A6 2.7T and have hit a few issues to say the least. It was a craigslist find for 1800$ which I jumped at and ended up in over my head a bit. Ended up with pretty much every gasket, cap and seal leaking oil, but I have managed my way through that with the help of you guys here and youtube. My most current issue is as I am putting it all back together, I have found the timing is significantly off. I am not a mechanic and this is only my 2nd timing belt job I have done (first one was on a Ford Focus which was very forgiving), so be gentle with the comments.

While I was putting the crank shaft pulleys back on, the passenger side was off a bit (10degrees-ish), so I used the camshaft lock tool to manuever/lever it back into position with the driver side pulley. As I got everything back on and torqued down, the crackshaft is off as well. At this point I am hesitant to continue as I dont want to finish everything, crank it over and wreck the engine. As it stands, the camshafts are in line, but the crank shaft is not. How do I go about rectifying this issue?

Do I take everything appart and once the timing belt is off of the crank shaft manually pull that to be inline with where it needs to be?
Does this mean the passenger side camshaft was in time with the crank shaft when I thought it was out? How do I go about fixing that issue (iif I can fix it...)?

Thanks

[Kaane]

Did you use a crank lock pin? Or just the mark on the cover? The cover is not precise at all. You must use the crank pin to lock. Did you remove the camshaft sprockets when you removed the old belt? You need to pull them off before you can set timing.

Basically you need 3 things to do proper timing.

Crank lock in place
Camshaft bar in place
loose sprockets.

[BStim]

Well, I did two out of the three. I used the cam shaft bar and loosened the sprockets during the job, but I did not use the crank lock tool (definately will next time, but next time doenst help me this time).

[Kaane]

Buy the tool, there is no other way to keep it aligned properly or rent it. It costs like $20, you can remove the timing belt and redo it. I would not risk it.

[BStim]

In hindsight, I agree that I wish I had. But I am at a loss as to how to fix my issue currently. My crankshaft is out of time with my camshafts. How do I go about fixing that issue?

[LINDW4LL]

In hindsight, I agree that I wish I had. But I am at a loss as to how to fix my issue currently. My crankshaft is out of time with my camshafts. How do I go about fixing that issue?

You need to just re-do the job, and thus should still buy the lock pin.

[BStim]

So I buy the lock pin, do I leverage the passenger side cam shaft back into time with the crank shaft and then fix the crank shaft or do I rotate the crank shaft into time with the cam shafts since they match now?

[LINDW4LL]

I would do the latter. Put the lock bar on the cams, take off the belt, then turn the crank back slightly until the lock pin fits in.

[BStim]

Cool beans. Thanks Lindw4ll. Do I need to do anything to ensure I dont damage any of the components while rotating the crankshaft to get it back to the timing mark?

[Kaane]

You won't do any damage just rotating it by hand. Especially if it is only off a few degrees.

[BStim]

Thanks again. I appreciate the help guys.