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Veteran Member
I just changed the 2nd timing belt on my 2004 BEW PD Jetta at 177,000 miles. I didn't think that my camshaft would make it another 80,000 miles so I installed a new frank06 chromed camshaft with the modified bearings to improve oil flow. It had been about 30K miles since my last camshaft inspection when I thought everything looked good, but I always thought that much of what you want to see with the valve cover off is obscured or very difficult to see because it is blocked by the rocker arms. The two rocker arms are pretty simple to remove & I think you would get a much better view of how your camshaft lobes & lifters are doing if you removed the rocker arms. Like many of the bolts that VW uses, the 8, OEM bolts that secure the 2 rocker arms are replace at each use bolts. Frank06 sells re-usable rocker arm & cam bearing bolts (I'm not sure if any of the other vendors in here sell re-usable rocker arm bolts) but if you want to get a much better look when you do this inspection I would recommend removing the rocker arms. I was quite surprised after I got everything out as the camshaft, lifters & bearings looked like new after 177,000 miles.
