BEW Camshaft replacement questions

Okay, so I find myself needing to put a new camshaft in the 2004 Jetta that I have had for a little less than a week. Some questions.

The car has 143,000 miles on it, and had the timing belt done at 102,000 miles. Do I need to remove the timing belt to do the camshaft? In a post in this thread https://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?p=3288289

coalminer16 said:

Do the timing belt. You won't need to redo that with the cam anyways. You can get the cam loose without taking all of the belt things off. You just have to take the cover off to get to the tensioner and the crank pulley. From there you can loosen the belt and get it off the cam sprocket. I was kind of thinking like you but I found out literally the hard way that you can move the belt on the cam sprocket (I put it on two teeth off).

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How tricky is this maneuver? How much more work is it to remove the timing belt completely? If I have to remove the belt I figure I would replace just the belt, but not do a full water pump, and belt tensioner replacement. Any easy way to support the engine without the nifty jig shown in Bentley?

Tools:
In either case I assume I need the timing belt tools, are there any I can get away without? What about the camshaft pulley tools, can I get the cam shaft pulley off with a regular three arm puller? I hate accumulating specialty tools that I will probably never need again. Anyone in North NJ who could lend me a set, or sell them cheap if you have used them for your one time use?

3359
3387 tensioner tool
t10115 tensioner locking tool
t10050 crankshaft lock

t10051 camshaft holder
t10052 puller

Is there a DIY/how to thread for this? I have searched around, and done lots of reading on PD camshafts, and lubrication, and billets, and other head spinning, staying up too late after yesterday's picnic kind of stuff, but did not come across a plain and simple diy.

1) you will basically be doing a timing belt job so you need all the lock down tools and vcds is a really good idea.

2) you can get by without the special puller

I have vcds. I googled around more and found this nice write up http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=243478. I am feeling pretty comfortable with the scope of the job. Looks like the only special tool I will really need is the one to lock down the crankshaft. It appears that most of the other ones are pins, which I can probably improvise.

Next big question is what cam to install. I have seen comments saying that a stage 2 cam will give better performance, and/or better mpg, but I also see comments saying that there is not such a noticeable bump from just a camshaft upgrade. I saw one comment that a new cam will let the engine breathe easier, but then the turbo becomes the limiting factor. This makes sense to me. If the turbo is designed for the flow produced by the stock camshaft, will a performance camshaft over stress the turbo? The turbo on this car already has 143,000 miles on it. For the extra money I am considering a performance camshaft, but I really don't want to cause other failures, by trying to get a little more out of the car. I do like that the stage 2 cam shafts come with a 300,000 mile warranty, but in reality if I get 150,000 out of a good replacement camshaft I probably will be ready for another toy by then. Any thoughts?

You can go so many different ways with which cam but you don't have to worry about any of them causing failures elsewhere in your car. You are right to worry about the turbo in your car though. Not to go all doom and gloom but it isn't really known for its durability.

You won't have to worry about the turbo due to the cam. With cams you have 3 to pick from OEM, Colt or Franko6. Colt and Franks cams each have been designed for better wear as both have stated there are design flaws. I think the colt cam stage two also centered on preformance as well as wear.

Install depends somewhat on who you buy from based on what there warranty says and what you feel comfortable with. But you will need timing belt tools. You don't need to do the whole replacement. You lock the crank and cam down (yes you need those tools) and then you loosen the tensioner and lock it in place with the pin tool as well. We bent the tensioner tool to an "L" shape to fit past the motor mount and shortened the "L" on the allen wrench (6mm) to move it around. From there everything is pretty well written up already. Some take the tandem fuel pump off (we did) and some turn the cam 1/4 turn so the slot is verticle and don't touch. It is just a gasket and 4 bolts (5 mm and 6 mm allen bolts). If you take off be sure to prime the fuel system with VCDS (thankyou greengeeker for both the fuel prime and showing how to properly do the tensioner hold tool trick). Also you want to turn the engine 1/4 turn back so the pistons are 1/2 way up/down so you don't risk hitting valves.

You will want to reset your injector lash-Frank has a good way to do this after you install the cam. You turn the cam till the intake lob is pointing at the roller of the injector on the rocker shaft. Then you losen the jam nut and tighten till you feel a resistance change and then back off 1/2 turn. That way no dial gauge is needed. Brothers new cam needed it a little bit-but not much.

Frank sells re-useable bolts vs OEM torque to yeild bolts and they are much cheaper. The design of the cam bearings-pressure is toward the head not the caps if that makes you feel safer-hence the bearing wear on the head bearings.

Up to you if you want to do the oiling mod on the cam bearings as well. We did the drilled method but he has made them so they can be done without it. Depends on your comfort level.

Frank swears by the breakin. I don't know what Colt requires. Again-depends on who you buy the cam from.

I will not go into bashing cam makers/sellers. I don't have an issue with any of them and won't tell anyone to choose either one. I can only go of experiences. Brother bought and installed the Franko6 cam with the re-useable bolts and the modified bearings.

Job was easier then a timing belt as you are messing with the engine mount. You can leave the bottom intercooler piping on (but it is in the way some turning the crank), top piping remove. You will need to remove serp belt and bottom pulley for the crank lock.

Hope this helps since I was qouted

Factory BEW cam should be fine. With good synthetic oil changes every 10k km (6000mi), you shouldn't have a problem going another 300-400k with it. Only tool you need is the cam locking pin, tensioner tool (most tensioners have a 6mm allen key slot in them though) and VCDS to set the timing. The crank you can get away with marking, and making sure it does not move. To remove the camshaft pulley, loosen the main pulley bolt 3-4 threads, and hit the bolt head with a hammer (hard) and it will come loose. You can do this on the engine, or remove the cam with pulley and do it on the bench. I recommend replacing the timing belt and water pump with oem quality parts and a steel impellar water pump.. this way you can be confident that you will not have to do this job over again for another 150k km.

As for the injector adjustment, I would leave it alone and not worry about it at all.

Same with the cam bearings, don't touch them.. its not necessary. Replace the worn ones and put it together like factory.

Don't buy cheap ebay kits.

Does any one have some links to some kits or contact info. I need parts for my girlfriends car and i need a timing belt kit for mine also so i might as well buy 2 kits and 1 cam.

Depending on the parts you are getting. Kermatdi, idparts, Franko6 (you have to search on her for his contact as I don't think he has a web site just yet), etc. Plenty of venders can get you OEM setup. There is a list of venders who sells the Colt cam which goes through Kerma and Frank is the only one selling his cam that I am aware of. Timing belts can be had by plenty of others here as well. We bought our kits from dieselgeek.com. You will need the tools.

Thanks for the reply. I was at the local diesel shop today and he called some one in BC that is building cams for these cars. Im gonna contact Frank first then go from there. Thansk for the help.

The BC guy would likely be Colt cams.
Don't think that Frank is providing Colt camshafts any longer, has designed his own with the assistance of camshaft engineering expertise.

Ok ya i wasnt sure. I just dont understand why the heck these cams are so much money, a cam for a cummins is cheaper and its 3 times the size lol. O well i guess it is what it is.

I ended up with getting an Estas camshaft from audiphile. Same brand as metalman and idparts is selling. Found audiphile in the fs section here on TDIClub. At $600 for the complete kit it was a little cheaper than the others I saw, and convenient for me to go and physically pick it up. Also got to meet audiphile in person, and see what he was working on. The picture of a camshaft in his ad is the actual one in my car. It was out of the box for a photo shoot when I got there to pick it up. He is a good guy and really went out of his way to try to help me out.

I picked up the camshaft on Tuesday. Put it in Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. Got the car through NJ inspection Friday morning, and took a 400 mile road trip on Friday afternoon to hike in NH for a week. Got 41 mpg on the way up here, and the car is running fine.

Thanks for the input everyone. The tips and support I got here is what made me comfortable jumping into this.

Below are pictures of the old cam and the lifters.

What oil were you using?

The service records show a history of all synthetic oil, 5w30 or 5w40. The last year or two the german car shop the previous owner was using seems to have gotten the 505.01 'memo' as a note saying that was a requirement started appearing on all of the work tickets.

I have liqui moly diesel high tech 5w40 in there now, and some zddp

5W-30 in a PD will result in a worn cam regardless if it meets specs or not. In face, VW's 505.01 spec is a bunch of baloney IMO.

Did you test your oil pressure? That much metal through the oil pump which is before the filter may have damaged it enough to need replacing as it could slowly starve the engine of oil.

No, I didn't test my oil pressure, other than "the idiot light isn't on, so it must be okay".

Can I check it with VCDS, or do I need to pull a plug from some test port somewhere and hook up a gauge? I am in NH hiking this week, so I don't have my whole shop with me, but I did bring the VCDS, and a handful of tools. I have the mighty vac with its pressure/vacuum gauge, but I may not have whatever fitting is needed. As an aside, I am loving the torque this car has for driving over mountains here, even with three passengers in the car.

myturbodiesel has an excelent write up on how to do the job for future reference. which lifter was worn thru? mine was and exhaust valve no 2 i think.. Just wondering if there is any comonality in that for others. I had similar damage to the lifter set and got another hundred out of my oil pump woiuld have gotten more but changed it out last time i wrecked the oil pan as the windage tray broke apart. I think the filters do a good job of collecting the cam wear mess

The filter is after the pump gears-hence my response and many others on here to check the pump pressure. I didn't say it would be low enough to set the light on-just lower in general. The cam and lifters are made from very hard metal and pump gears have tight clearances.

If you have a diesel geek bypass filter-you can put a manual gauge there. If not then you can pull your oil pressure sensor which is to the right side (when sitting in the car) of the oil filter housing to put a guage on.

coalminer16 said:

snipped....... If not then you can pull your oil pressure sensor which is to the right side (when sitting in the car) of the oil filter housing to put a guage on.

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Anybody know what pressure range (at what RPM) we should see at that stock filter housing location?
Thanks!