Some work from the weekend - fitting the new crank rear main seal. The end of the crank was pretty crusty
Cleaned it up with a wire brush in the dremel
The new seal comes with an interesting plastic sleeve which fits over the end of the crank to allow the seal to slide on without damaging it, similar to what I do with the plastic bag for the CV boot
Push the seal in thus, then pull the plastic sleeve out
Drive plate back on with new bolts
Roll the engine and gearbox back together. With the machine, I can literally pop them together with finger and thumb
Its at this point I got stuck because the bolts to attach the torque converter were still sitting on the shelf at TPS
I managed a couple more jobs. Ready for the inlet manifold, but I forgot to take a pic of the manifold back on
The header tank hose is a little worse for wear.
Unfortunately we can't get these any more so mitigation is the only option. I covered it in some high-temperature heat-shrink sleeving. I'll form this to shape better when its installed. The sleeving shrinks at 200+ degrees so it's quite happy at coolant temperatures, and it will protect the hose from any more damage.
The rest of the coolant hoses installed
And now today's work. The missing bolts arrived this morning. You can see why I got stuck without them!
Torque to 85Nm through the starter hole!
The crank is held still with the breaker bar while tightening the drive plate. The crank locking pin can't be used for this job because there are three bolts so the engine has to be rotated to specific points
Bosch FGR6KQE spark plugs - exactly what the factory fitted but without the Audi logo and 1/3 the price
How many mechanics use a torque wrench on spark plugs, or even bother to read the torque specification on the box? One - me! I am amazed every time I take an engine apart how completely randomly tight or not the plugs are. Some are gorilla'd in, some are only hand-tight! Its really not that hard to do it properly
28Nm in case you need to know
Only one picture for a couple of hours work, but I degreased and cleaned up the wiring harness and put that back on the engine, along with the starter motor, alternator and engine mounts. Its pretty much ready to go back on the subframe tomorrow
