Noticed a funny "clacking" noise coming from the mk4 the other day. Finally decided to check it out. I'd always thought it ran a bit lumpy, but when I checked it out I could see the crank pulley was actually wobbling! took the belt offf and to my horror the bolt in the crank pulley was only finger tight. I manged to wind it out by hand. The key is totally chewed to bits, the pulley is worn, but the worrying thing is that the keyway is also worn, and possibly the end of the crank itself. I took the key out ane tried to file the rought bits off the crank and refit it all. unfortunately it came loose again the same night causing an AA call out. He took the pulley off and the key had gone completely, so he just put the pulley back on and tightened the bolt up with a battery powered impact gun. I have another engine inthe garage but I can't get the pulley off it. so I tried an old VR6 pulley, very similar. again, this pulley doens't fit tight on the crank and doesn't locate in the keyway (which is now stretched).. I've just had to give it another dose of windy gun tonight as it's started making a noise again. I'm getting an awful lot of vibration, up to 2000rpm you can feel it shaking the car (worse as I have an uprated gearbox mount). really worried now that I'll have to pull the motor out and remove the crank any ideas before I swap the engines over (again).
has the crank pulley worn at all?? I can't see a key way piece on ETKA, it is part of the crank? I know from my mistakes (and other peoples) that I've tightened a similar pulley on a 4 cylinder engine with a air gun, and it's worked loose very soon after, I now do it up with a long crack bar, with crank pulley held in place with pully holding tool (meter long long) then go as far as FT loose pullies on chain driven FSI units don't go down well with customers when there car goes off the road week minium must say only done it once!
alternative is take the starter motor out and hold the crank still with the flywheel ring gear / bit of pointy steel home made very odd this - does the timing belt run off the crank pulley on a VR ? lucky the engine isn't toast....
ah - so effectively this is equivalent to the intermediate pulley on a valver - drives waterpump / alternator, with vibration damper built into pulley ?
IVe fixed this prob before on 2.0 litre 16v,s , first remove sump cover ,then i cut 2 pieces of hardwood pref oak, bring the crank around so they both jam the crank web between the block. get a new or crank pully, the bit that drives the cam belt, if the crank groove is a bit out of shape ,mix some liquid steel place in the groove ,then fit the pully, loads off locktight on the bolt , and power bar it tight with the crank locked agaist the block , not sure if you can apply procedure to a vr though
scared of the block method, the r32 block is really thin down the bottom. the other motor has no flywheel or gearbox how much is the tool? hell, I'll make one....
Put some old flywheel bolts in and use a big bar between the bolts to brace the crank / stop it turning
I had same thing with my vr6 engine, think it happened because the donor engine i got had side impact and the pulley touched the chasis leg, keyway in the crank was a bit worn and the actual key non existant, you cant buy the key separate from the pulley from vw surprisingly, luckily i had a spare engine, so took the key off that engine, i was a bit concerned with the keyway on the crank but has been fine since, i had to use the tool to undo the bolt on my spare engine, and i also used it to tighten it up
Common problem on late VAG cars mate. Quite common on the Bentley GT. I know of a number of GT's with then coming off completely.
that last place I worked at had a box of various Key ways he'd bought in the 70'S! we could find any size, I wonder if sets are still available??
