06 BRM stock cam is wasted, has become much more.

[Moddage]

Hello all,

as the title suggests my 06 BRM finally is getting a replacement cam, it has 224k miles on it, and I’m presently in process of replacing the cam, turbocharger, and a bunch of other (mostly little) things I keep finding as I’ve been tearing it down. I’ve hit a point where I probably should have just bought a wrecked 2.0CR car for parts and engine swapped it but I’m in too deep now to turn back...

I’m replacing the cam with an AMC unit, my budget doesn’t allow for a Franko6 or Colt cam or I’d have gone that route. I’ve inspected the AMC cam on a surface plate and it’s within ~0.0005” end to end and the surface finish looks fine, so I’m rolling with it. It will be slathered in Joe Gibbs assembly lube and broken in with their break-in oil as well. I’m using the Franko6 solid bolts in the cam caps and rocker axles, and I will most likely be drilling the cam caps and/or modifying the Glyco bearing shells as well.

Here are some photos of the cam, lifters, and bearings I pulled yesterday.

Cam, lifters, bearings, caps.

• Moddage
• Jan 21, 2021

Cylinder 1 lifters

• Moddage
• Jan 21, 2021

Cylinder 2 lifters

• Moddage
• Jan 21, 2021

Cylinder 3 lifters

• Moddage
• Jan 21, 2021

Cylinder 4 lifters

• Moddage
• Jan 21, 2021

Cam bearings, closer.

• Moddage
• Jan 21, 2021

Here’s a shot of the injector rockers, it’s hard to tell from this photo, but there is some scoring on the rollers that I can feel with my nail and will need to be polished out before reinstallation.

Injector rockers

• Moddage
• Jan 21, 2021

I’m a bit concerned with how much wear the cam and lifters have, about the amount of metal that potentially has gone through the oil pump and what its internals look like, has anyone torn down a BRM oil pump after a cam failure to check it for damage? Do the oil pumps typically take damage from these cam failures, or are the metal particles usually small enough to not significantly impact the internals of the oil pump?


As for the seemingly ever growing list of other stuff being done/replaced, the stock BV39 turbocharger had 0.016-0.019” radial play and 0.003” axial play measured at the nut on the compressor side, and I found a great deal on a brand new PD140 turbo upgrade kit so I opted for that.

The tandem pump has been slowly seeping diesel between it and the head, and I think the drivers side back corner of the valve cover was weeping some oil as well, so the transmission dogbone bushing is shot, one of the EGR coolant hoses was mush, and I noticed the trans dogbone bushing in the subframe is dry rotted/cracked/sloppy too, so all that is getting fixed.

Typical EGR cooler leak around the flap shaft, will be getting welded and will never leak again. I’d delete it but it’s cold here 6 months out of the year and I like fuel economy.

intercooler and charge piping has more oil residue in it than I’m okay with, so I’ll be cleaning all that out.

I have a new thermostat and other little things I’ve been putting off, like shifter cable bushings etc, so I’m doing that too since the exhaust is off.

I’m also taking the opportunity to install a FrostHeater, partly because I’ve wanted one for a while and partly so I can preheat the engine and the oil before the first fire so it’s all up to temp for the initial break-in, and the rest of the first 500 miles of break in and beyond as well. 15W-50 break-in oil and ~30°F or less temps is a no go.

I plan to clean the intake manifold and EGR system, and maybe walnut blast the intake ports, unsure how to accomplish that yet but I have a few ideas...

I’m sure I’m forgetting stuff, it’s late here and I’m tired. I will likely update the thread with more pictures as I go along, this has become a much longer and more involved project than I anticipated, none of it is beyond my capabilities, just time consuming, frustrating, and I feel like every time I take something apart I find another thing I need to order or dismantle to inspect. I’m super meticulous and have another car to drive at the moment so that’s not helping matters either...

 

[dtrvler]

You are doing it right. Cking everything while you have it torn down. I do it that way too.

 

[oilhammer]

You'd get it done faster if you stopped taking pictures of things we've all seen hundreds (thousands?) of times.

I get these knocked with a new timing belt job in an afternoon. I don't mess with any of the break in oil stuff, but if you want to it certainly cannot hurt I guess.

I would recommend using OEM cam cap bolts, as the shoulders do a better job of indexing the end cam cap against the tandem pump (I have had to redo a dozen or more of these for people when they develop a nasty oil leak back there... often 10-30k miles later).

I'm glad my PDs won't ever need any of this.

 

[Moddage]

You'd get it done faster if you stopped taking pictures of things we've all seen hundreds (thousands?) of times.

I get these knocked with a new timing belt job in an afternoon. I don't mess with any of the break in oil stuff, but if you want to it certainly cannot hurt I guess.

I would recommend using OEM cam cap bolts, as the shoulders do a better job of indexing the end cam cap against the tandem pump (I have had to redo a dozen or more of these for people when they develop a nasty oil leak back there... often 10-30k miles later).

I'm glad my PDs won't ever need any of this.

I took the photos mostly for my own documentation, I know everyone has seen this a ton and is probably sick of it, I’ve lost count of how many threads on here I’ve read through at this point.

I could easily knock out a cam change in an afternoon, but I’ve got lots of other things happening at the same time, so I’m taking my time and meticulously going through everything and doing some preventative maintenance at the same time.

I’ve noted the concerns about cam cap alignment issues with the solid bolts, a thought I had was to initially align and snug the caps with the original bolts and then swap one bolt at a time to the solid ones and proceed to final torque while tapping on the caps with a dead blow to seat them correctly. I planned to make sure the ends of the caps aligned flush with the side of the head either way, and I think I recall there being a specific note about that in the service manual. I think my plan now is to just use the solid bolts, verify alignment with the head, and tappy-tap-tap on the caps as they are being torqued to ensure alignment of the caps, bearing shells, and the cam I’m also cleaning the bolt holes out and using oil tolerant Loctite 243(medium strength). Since these will no longer be stretched into yield to maintain constant clamp load, I don’t want any issues with vibration backing them out.

I’m curious why your PDs won’t ever need any of this?

I searched a little but couldn’t seem to locate a thread or post discussing a cam failure and the wear metals associated with it causing premature oil pump death or degradation of performance, you’ve clearly been around here a lot longer than I have, do you recall this occurring, or being discussed, or perhaps seen it personally?

 

[James & Son]

I wouldn't do the dogbone until you have to replace the clutch. The rubber is a press fit into the subframe. The other course is to use a black forest insert but removing the center bolt which is probably rusted in will destroy the existng rubber, so check to see that that the bolt is free( or unfreeze somehow) in the initial breaking loose.

Yes, since your putting the effort in, you should probably drop the pan and clean it out which would allow you to check the oil pump for scoring.

Initially on some of the early failures the oil cooler was being replaced as well since any metal would be in it as well. But the oil pump has a lot of capacity , 25% over driven compared to the earlier BEW, so nobody replaces the oil cooler or checks the pump now I guess and seem to get away with it, it seems anyways?

 

[Moddage]

I planned on replacing the oil cooler and dropping the pan to clean it out, so I might as well pull the oil pump apart and check the internals. It’s essentially a tight tolerance gerotor style hydraulic pump, and I’m not sure if the internals of these are solid steel or powdered metal like some cars, if powdered metal and damaged, I’d be concerned about it continuing to chip and eventually fail catastrophically. I’m hoping I inspect it and find it in perfect condition, but we shall see. I assume VW upped the oil volume on the BRM in an attempt to try and make up for the skinnier cam lobes and poor oiling system choices with regards to how the cam bearings are loaded in these engines. Probably a calculated change that was the cheapest and easiest option to implement and got most of the cars past the warranty period. So the way I see it is, even with the cam bearing oiling modification, these can use all the flow and pressure they can get, since I’ll have the pan off anyway, I’d be stupid not to check the pump while I’m right there.

As for the dogbone, I have a bushing insert for the one in the subframe, and a new bushing for the one soaked in diesel/oil. Surprisingly the underside of the car isn’t as rusty as I expected, and the oil/diesel leak that soaked the dogbone seems to have kept the bolts in good condition at the expense of the rubber bushing. Either way it’s last on my to do list. Getting the engine back together and fired up is the first priority. I appreciate the warning about the bolt potentially being seized in there though, the subframe bushing doesn’t have much oil contamination, if any, so that is possible.

If I didn’t love the TDI so much I wouldn’t have ever bothered with this, but I really like everything else about the car and since it’s a little rusty on the outside and not very pretty, I actually use this one and don’t really care if I scratch the bumper unloading/loading something. It’s become my daily/workhorse. Discovering the fold flat front seat was a great day, watching people watch me load 8ft lumber in my car is entertaining. I do miss the visual aesthetics of my MK4, but not the gas engine or auto trans.

 

[James & Son]

If you are going to use reusable bolts what torque setting are you using for the 6 and 8 mm dia. This is a test.

 

[Moddage]

If you are going to use reusable bolts what torque setting are you using for the 6 and 8 mm dia. This is a test.

37 Ugga duggas on the 8mm and 19 ugga duggas on the 6mm?

144in-lb on the 6mm and 25ft-lb on all but the outer 8mm rocker bolts, those get 22ft-lb. All holes will be cleaned and free of standing oil and the fasteners will receive oil tolerant medium strength Loctite 243, applied correctly to blind holes where applicable by dripping down the side of the hole, not the bolt.

what’s my test score?

 

[James & Son]

I am not sure on the ugga duggas!, but the rest is in Franko6 ever descending torque suggestions.

I am not suggesting anybody use my own figures or do what I have done 7 times but the original 6 mm dia stretch and the 8mm dia. stretch screws can be reused at 9 foot lbs and 24 foot lbs respectively. I would prefer doing this by buying a new set. I am not the only one who has done this without an issue and calculations also confirm.

and while your at if you rotate the shells about .006 to.008 thou from flush it allows you to accurately locate the cap. If you think about it you will understand what I am saying.