timing belt woes :(

Ok guys. I have a few topics on here concerning my progress of getting the head off my new 91 Tsi AWD.

Its almost done (the head removal that is) but the timing belt is holding me up. My Haynes manual says jack up the engine a bit with a block of wood and pull the front motor mount. Then it wants me to remove all the pullys and belts and shit off the side of the motor. However I dont have room on the side of the motor to do that.

I called up the only repair place in my small town that will work on DSM's and they said right now to finish the job for me it would be $250 in labor plus the cost of new parts. They said the manual is wrong and that I have to pull the engine up 8-10 inchs to do that and I have to unbolt all mounts???

This is seeming like alot of work to me. I have been told you can unbolt the cam gears and ziptie the belt to them and string it to the hood. I tryed to unbolt the cam gears but they are on there really good. I suppose I could impact wrench them off but how safe is this method. I dont want to screw anything up? Which way is the easiest and safest to get the damn tb off.

If anyone lives in the central ohio area and can spare a day to help me do this I will be forever in your debt.

Please let me know if you have any ideas or pointers on this and thanks.

Why not just cut the belt and pull the head off. I assume your going to put a new one on anyways. Having the head off would give you more room around the motor. Then just set everything to TDC before you put the head back on, install the head and line up the timing then just put the new timing belt on.

This should help a little.

http://www.vfaq.com/mods/timingbelt-1G.html

I use the transfer case to hold the engine up but have NEVER gone 8-10 inches. Just enough to keep the engine dropping too far. You have enough room. You have to be creative. Go from the bottom with some things, go from the top with others.

I've done 3 timing jobs following the Haines manual. Yes it sucks that theres no room however, I managed to pull it off. Socket wrenches are a HUGE help. Expect cut hands and bruised knuckles.

that's one of the reasons why i dont have a belt cover. but here's what i did.
jack up the engine a little, then removed the motor mount, and then jack it up some more untill you clear the water pump pulley.

I will be looking at it more tommarow. Im so close now that this is all thats left to remove the head and its a bit late to throw money to a shop.

How hard is getting all this back togather going to be on me?

I will be looking at it more tommarow. Im so close now that this is all thats left to remove the head and its a bit late to throw money to a shop.

How hard is getting all this back togather going to be on me?


yeah i learned the hard way, one day i took my head to the shop and i told them to replace my intake and exhaust valves, and they thought i said "bolts", they wanted to charge me 550 for it. so now i just do all the work myself.