Attached is the longer vid for the cam tensioner pad swap (down at the bottom of the post).
The first thing you'll probably notice is that I've got the cam locking bar in. The crank is also still locked. The reason for this is that if you do one bank at a time and don't remove the exhaust cam you never lose the timing. The official Audi procedure is to remove both cams which seems a bit excessive. Also, if you do it like this you don't actually have to remove the timing belt if you're doing the job in the car.
I'm doing all the oil seals here so I'm also taking the cam cap off the exhaust cam, but if you're just doing the pads you don't need to touch that seal.
Probably the single most important 'top tip' for this job is how to get the cam cap bolts loose. They're only done up to 10Nm on the V6 or 5Nm + 90° on the V8, but breaking them loose requires a substantial amount of torque - more than the average T30 tool can handle. The trick is to put the T30 tool in the bolt head (after cleaning out any crud or oil) and give it a sharp tap with a hammer. This breaks the stiction between the bolt and the threads, and it will then come out without breaking anything. It'll still go with a crack when it breaks loose, but at least it won't snap the tool! Buy the best T30 tool you can - Facom, Snapon, etc, and ideally have a sacrificial one for the hammer bit. Ideally have a couple of spares too!
The manual says replace the bolts on the V8, since they're torque + degrees, but I have measured used ones against new ones and they are identical so I've stopped replacing them, saving £100-odd on the job! The V6 bolts are just done to standard M6 torque so no need to replace them.
You can briefly see me marking the cam chain with nail polish - there's a TDC notch on each cam so I mark the chain exactly above that notch before I remove the cam. You can see me lift the intake cam and wiggle the tensioner out, then put the cam back in place. At no point do I remove the cam from the chain, therefore making sure I don't lose timing. You need to remove both the cam caps next to the chain to do this (ie intake and exhaust) in order for the tensioner to come out this way.
I let the new pads sit in a cup of hot water before fitting them. That makes them a little more flexible and they just pop on the tensioner without any fuss. You do need to remove the tensioner compressing tool to get the top pad on. Just hold the tensioner carefully while you do this and make sure the two pistons don't fall out and it'll be fine.
There is a little gauze filter in the bottom of the tensioner where it gets its oil feed from the head. Be careful not to damage this or let it drop out.
Tensioner pads are
on ebay here btw, including the tensioner holding tool which is very useful. I have a drawer full of them now
