Geared BSM carnage

Sold a guy a BSM delete kit that I had on the shelf and he brought back the old parts for show and tell...

What does the 6mm hexshaft and the fittings it runs through look like?

What's the backstory?

Not much of a backstory. Guy is not the original owner. Figured it still had a chain. Said it started making noise so he shut it off had had it towed. He has it back together now and it ran and idled good. Took it for a test drive and came home with real bad rod knock. The oil pump is all chewed up inside from eating gear teeth. Hex key has noticeable wear on it. Unknown miles on the geared BSM.

With that, we must assume it was not installed correctly?

Any damage to the inside of the front of the oil pan? We had one come through that the BSM idler gear was not properly torqued and the bolt cam loose. (The car owner had installed it himself)

It wore a nice divot in the front of the pan before the carnage looked like the pictures above.

Curious if similar incidents of a geared BSM has been reported before. I do not recall registering on the TDIClub B5.5 'radar' for the last few years but there are more knowledgable folks in this forum than can chime in please.

dogdots said:

Any damage to the inside of the front of the oil pan? We had one come through that the BSM idler gear was not properly torqued and the bolt cam loose. (The car owner had installed it himself)

It wore a nice divot in the front of the pan before the carnage looked like the pictures above.

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Not sure about the front of the pan, but that's the least of this guys worries. It wasn't rod knock, the crank is broke. The #1 web between the crank snout and the first rod journal is broke clean through. The loose idler must have been repeated getting jammed between the crank sprocket and BSM sprocket, stressing the crank.

It's obvious that the idler gear bolt wasn't torqued. Whoever installed it tried to use an allen socket to torque it, stripped the internal XZN fastener, and then must have used a vise grips to "make sure it was tight". You can see the bite marks on the bolt head from vise grips.

OMG. That sounds like a BSM job performed by "M I N I O N" a former tdiclub member in bad standing (not to be confused with current member "MINION" without he spaces).

I would think buying a VW supplied shortblock at this point would be a bargain.

thundershorts said:

I would think buying a VW supplied shortblock at this point would be a bargain.

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I agree. And this clearly was the result of a moron install.

dogdots said:

Any damage to the inside of the front of the oil pan? We had one come through that the BSM idler gear was not properly torqued and the bolt cam loose. (The car owner had installed it himself)

It wore a nice divot in the front of the pan before the carnage looked like the pictures above.

Click to expand...

I had and engine this same problem. I saved the geared BSM and wonder if it's still any good. I might be able to source the damaged gears but not sure if the internals got damaged or not.

What would you say?

We reused the BSM, just replaced the damaged gears. The gears are the same as on a CBEA if I remember correctly. The hex shaft was fine on the one we had that the idler came loose on. Check your hex shaft, if its not showing signs of rounding, the module is probably OK

I have one B5.5 with a geared BSM and 2 with chain driven ALH oil pumps. The one with the geared BSM is in the only one that still has the ZF auto. When that geared BSM fails, or when the ZF fails, its getting the BSM delete and 5 speed manual conversion too.

oilhammer said:

I agree. And this clearly was the result of a moron install.

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A "minion" install???

The one dogdots was talking about the guy didn't "preload" the idler gear into the two other gears before tightening the bolt causing too much end play and resulting in failure.

BSM delete is the only way I will Own a CBEA. I am even deleting the 100mm shaft in mine right now. Had a failure on my 09 never want to go through that again. CJAAA swap or Chain pump that does not run that fast is the way to go.....

I have an 05 with geared bsm and just over 100k-no problems. Remember all it's not what but who.

50harleyrider said:

I have an 05 with geared bsm and just over 100k-no problems. Remember all it's not what but who.

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2x. My geared BSM has about 180,000 km on it.

Geared BSM in BHW. 140000 miles on it.

I have 150k on mine, but I have a couple customers that have over 200k, and one has gone over 250k.

hmmmm would the BSM delete kit fit into the CKRA? its designed for CBEA as I suspect CKRA do have similar design as CBEA on the bottom since they all are EA189 engine family?