Crank shaft pulley came off
 

After a lovely day in whitestable with the family, I was heading back home on the motorway and lost power steering, the battery light came on and a horrible noise came from the under the bonnet.

It scared the bejesus out of me and my first thought was "F**k, the engine has just imploded!". I managed to coast over to the hard shoulder and a quick peek under the bonnet revealed that everything was intact except the crank shaft pulley was resting on the edge of the crank shaft half leaning on the fan. All bolts were gone except for one which had the head sheared off.

The AA came within 30 minutes and confirmed there's nothing they could do so sent for a recovery truck which took a while but we all finally got home at 3 am. We were all absolutely knackered!

My mates had a look today and said it appears there's no damage to anything so just 8 new bolts required. He's not very familiar with these cars but is an ex VW techie so is used to VAG cars and said it should be fine once he has the front end off.

He's asked if anyone can provide a decent picture of the front of the engine bay with the belt in place or a diagram of layout from ETKA or similar? I've had a look an Google but it only seems to pull up pics with the timing belt....

Thanks Rich

Will this help?

Doesn't look like the serpentine belt is on in the pic?

Ah sorry, I missed the point of your request! :o

See attached pdf's

Thanks for the help guys - ainarssems that will do the job +++

Mate just ordered up 8 new bolts and a new pulley which should be here tomorrow. Hopefully have her back on the road in time for our holiday to Devon next week :)

That's a pretty lucky escape if nothing else is damaged! Sounds like the bolts weren't fully torqued after the last timing belt.

Have fun in Devon +++

It's weird because the belt was changed about 45k ago.

Thinking back over the past six weeks, I felt a very slight vibration when the car was on tick over or netrual which I mentioned to the wife and she said "oh you're being paranoid about your baby again!". I actually think that was the start of the pulley working its way lose!

It's bugging me how this could happen :Confused:

I've only had the car 3 months and nothing was picked up when it went in for service a few weeks back.

Are these bolts not supposed to be single use only pre-coated with threadlock to stop them from undoing? I have always reused them but I put threadlock on them again.

Not 100% sure.

I don't think Audi insist on changing them but reading on some forums a few people put new bolts on during a belt change for peace of mind.

Its a challenge to even find the torque spec for those bolts in Elsawin - its not included in the timing belt section, but a separate bit just for the pulley. Spec is only 22Nm, which is surprisingly little actually. It doesn't say to replace them either. I think thread lock would be a very sensible idea though.

Mine had quite obviously been reused by the previous owner/garage. Heads were chewed to bits and 3 were a bugger to remove.
Ordered replacements off TPS - look like there is some coating on them to lock/hold in place