Which ALH timing belt DIY guide to follow?

Which guide does everyone recommend following these days? I see that myturbodiesel's guide has been removed?

What is everyone's favorite?

AHHEM
http://pics3.tdiclub.com/articles/pdf/a4timingbelt.pdf

MTD was great, now its total crap now that they deleted 99% of their content.

Be aware of the no-no in that procedure. When turning the engine over for the check after everything's tight it says to turn the cam. Should say to use a wrench on the crank, not the cam. Rotating the cam puts tension on the slack side of the belt instead of loading it in the normal running direction.

If you don't believe this is a problem observe how the tensioner gives when you turn the cam and the belt gets some slack between the cam and crank.

Also the timing instructions are incorrect. Says to rotate the the "pump" CCW to advance. Seems to be a leftover from the AHU instructions. Should say to rotate the shaft CW to advance.

good catch.

I found the myturbodiesel timing belt guide the other day. Apparently they had some problems with their wiki page that are now fixed. You just have to search it’s not easy to find like it was.

Of course there is the great writeup procedure here, linked above.

I use the pdf listed above and also print out the "checklist" :
http://pics.tdiclub.com/data/517/ALH_checklist1.pdf
I actually check off each line as I go since I tend to be doing too many things at once

Yep, I've always used the how-to linked here. Take the tablet out to the garage and take it step by step and hard to go wrong. A few "note to self" items like the cam/crank bolt for turning it over and the confusion over which direction to rotate the IP sprocket to advance/retard timing, but otherwise very well done.

Does anyone know why MTD took down all their content?

As a paying member, I'm somewhat peeved ...

They changed hosting software and they seem to have no computer geeks in house.
Poorly organized, but they are here-
https://www.myturbodiesel.com/pages/tdi-wiki/

absalom said:

Does anyone know why MTD took down all their content?
As a paying member, I'm somewhat peeved ...

Click to expand...

Their content is back up, you just have to search a little harder for it.

re MTD: the creator / original owner of MTD no longer had the time necessary to keep up with the site. As a result, he sold the site to a forum conglomerate, VerticalScope ("with over 800 forum communities"). They migrated the site from its old forum software to their preferred platform, and in the process a lot of content was temporarily mislocated and/or its formatting overhauled (underhauled?).

As mentioned, much of the site's wiki has been 'restored' (see above link), but it is no longer presented in an organized or coherent fashion. Major pity.

Thanks for the advice re the a4timingbelt.pdf mistakes.

I see from the link that parts 1 and 2 of mtb timing belt guide are there, does anyone know where to find part 2? If I remember right part three was members only, so maybe it was lost in the transition.

For better or worse, MTB MK4 TDI ALH timing belt guide, pt 3: https://www.myturbodiesel.com/threa...le-golf-alh-engine-1998-2003.2242/#post-15444