miss aligned cam shaft

[woodsy]

I'm working on a S4 that has been stood for 4 years, I have been advised to change the cam belt, to do this I have just removed the engine. With the crank pulley mark pointing to the inboard timing marker and the tdc mark on the flywheel below the little hole made for the pointer, the dots on the cams should be opposite. Mine looks like one cam is a tooth out, I'm a touch worried that this has been either done for a reason or could have caused damage, does anybody know why it may have been done like this?

Any ideas appreciated.

[Vulcan Grey]

THe dots do look a little off when perfect. A full tooth off is 18deg IIRC, and should be more obvious. Be sure to double check though.

No reason for them to be a tooth off as that would be too much of an advance or retard.

One tooth probably won't cause damage, but best to do a leakdown test before starting the engine.

That way you can see if the valves are closing.

[andydclements]

Don't forget any slight mis-alignment on the crank position will equate to the same differecne on these pullies.

If the crank is off that mark by just 2 degrees, the cam would be out by 1 degree (2 crank rotations = 1 cam rotation), but because they both rotate in the same direction, one dot would be up 1 degree, the other down 1 degree.

try aligning the 2 dots, and see what the crank alignment looks like.

Andy

[esprits4de]

When Steffen at R&B fitted my new green cam gears he told me that mine were "off" as well.

Nothing to worry about he says, just that they are never really centered well....