Well, there's your problem...

My 2001 Golf TDI 5 speed had developed the telltale vibration that says that the DMF is on it's way out. No big deal, I did the same job years ago on my 2005 Jetta so I dove in. When I got to the flywheel, yep, she's dead Jim.



Ok, no problem. When I did the Jetta I was able to rotate the outer part of the flywheel so the holes lined up. (After much hammering) nope. Time to break out the angle grinder:



I didn't bother locking the flywheel down, my impact wrench made short work of the bolts

I've actually got a bunch of work to do since the car has 220,000+ miles on it. I'm replacing the shocks and struts, pulling the intake to clean it, and checking the turbo to make sure the vanes are free and the actuator is working.



Yeah, I should probably clean that.

Looking forward to the whole project, it's been a while since I've had any serious car work to do.

Make sure you save the crumbs so you can return them to the La Brea Tar Pits. j/k

I hate having to cut the flywheels apart.

Best of luck with the EGR valve, as well.


I have had the worst luck with them leaking oil vapor out the EGR actuator blow-by holes after cleaning mine. I was trying to figure out where the drips were coming from on my driveway, and eventually found that the EGR valve was spraying the valve cover, and eventually dripping down the back of the engine.

Metal Man said:

I hate having to cut the flywheels apart.

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No joke, it's a pain in the butt. I kept checking to make sure I hadn't set anything on fire.
Looking at it there's really no reason for that central spider portion covering the bolts. It can't add much in the way of strength and it just guarantees that when the flywheel fails you'll have to cut it apart.

hey_allen said:

Best of luck with the EGR valve, as well.

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Thanks for the heads up. I'll try to be gentle with it.

I suspect you tried to rotate the center part of the DMF back. But, I have to ask. So, did you think about using a chisel/punch and big hammer to nudge it back enough to get a tool in there?

And, yes, I can imagine there was an awesome display of sparks when you were grinding. You know that stuff is not good for your lungs! (I hate having to grind stuff, even on the bench grinder!)

AndyBees said:

I suspect you tried to rotate the center part of the DMF back. But, I have to ask. So, did you think about using a chisel/punch and big hammer to nudge it back enough to get a tool in there?
And, yes, I can imagine there was an awesome display of sparks when you were grinding. You know that stuff is not good for your lungs! (I hate having to grind stuff, even on the bench grinder!)

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Yeah, that's what I did on the Jetta and it worked fine. I hammered on this one pretty good and it just didn't want to move enough to get the holes to line up. I tried prying between the edge of the holes and the bolts, but that was a no go as well. It would move a bit in either direction, but not enough to get to the bolt heads.

I considered getting a bigger hammer, but decided against it.

My biggest problem with grinding the center out was the humidity in my garage. My safety glasses kept fogging up so much I couldn't see anything. So it was grind for a minute or so, stop and wipe glasses, repeat. Still only took 10 minutes to get it done. I was concerned about setting the car on fire, so I stopped to rotate the flywheel so that the sparks always showered down onto the floor rather than into the engine compartment.

I have had to cut a lot of those apart. Sucks. Par for the course, though. Just be thankful it didn't look like this:



That one necessitated a new transmission (broke the case), and a new water neck on the back of the head (broke that, too!). No idea how long he'd been driving with it shaking, but I suspect it was at least one mile too long.

oilhammer said:

I have had to cut a lot of those apart. Sucks. Par for the course, though. Just be thankful it didn't look like this:
[image snipped]
That one necessitated a new transmission (broke the case), and a new water neck on the back of the head (broke that, too!). No idea how long he'd been driving with it shaking, but I suspect it was at least one mile too long.

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Yep, I knew when I started feeling that familiar vibration that the flywheel was on borrowed time. And I knew from this site back when the one in the Jetta went south that ignoring it was not a good long term plan.

Glad you got fixed!

I just had to inform a customer that the coolant leak on his 2005 Audi A8L is most likely the oil cooler seals. Step 1: REMOVE ENGINE. 24 hour job.

I can only imagine what a W12 would mean...

Nutsnbolts said:

I can only imagine what a W12 would mean...

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I'm not looking forward to having to service the timing chains on my 2005 Audi S4. They're on the back of the motor.

Those are a SEVERE pain in the ass; a friend of mine owned one for a while and when it started making noise back there I told him to dump the car -- the amount of work required to get to them is flat-out obscene.

Genesis said:

Those are a SEVERE pain in the ass; a friend of mine owned one for a while and when it started making noise back there I told him to dump the car -- the amount of work required to get to them is flat-out obscene.

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I have actually considered a TDI swap if/when it comes to that. A TDI S4 cabriolet would be pretty cool.

Well if you think THAT'S bad another friend of mine had a crankshaft-position sensor start throwing codes on a certain rather-well known European marque. The shop procedure to change the sensor begins with "remove engine"; it cannot be gotten at with the engine in the car! I told her to sell it FAST.

Wow... reminds me of a lot of Chilton's books I was forced to use in the 60s. Seems like any major operation started... Step 1: Remove Hood. Step 2: Remove engine.

That S4 engine looks horrible to work on.

Is that the 3.2? I had a 2008 A4 with a 3.2, but sold it after 5 years. That motor in the picture looks like a swiss watch.

All the later chain driven V6s and V8s look similar. There are a bunch of them.

I think the last good V6 they had was the 3.0L. One belt, drove all four cams. Didn't even use that silly cam-to-cam chain in each head like the earlier belt driven V6s use. AVK is the engine code. Timing belt is a bit time consuming to change, mainly because the valve covers have to come off to put the cam lock bridges on, but since the vario cam timing is done in the cam sprocket itself, it is overall a much simpler setup. Too bad that engine was not used for very long or in very many models. The C5 platform A6 equipped with that engine is a nice car. AVK makes 220hp, which is within spitting distance of the biturbo 2.7L (250hp) and is a simpler engine overall. Of course, the 4.2L V8 is nice, too.