84 4ksq Timing Belt Catastrophe...HELP!

[Alex Kowalski]

OK, maybe you're both better with them than me, or braver, or both.  I have nightmares 
about people with impact wrenches invading and tightening everything to the wrong torque, 
but it's a big world, and to each their own.  ;)  No personal offense meant in that post.

I'm sure there are people who are virtuosos with them, and can tell when something 
is torqued correctly by feel and timing and experience -- I can see your point and it makes sense.
But for the time being I'll stick with my torque wrench.  Which, yes, I just paid a lot of money
for after not having a good one for a while, so there was a little bias of my own in there.

Cheers,
Alex Kowalski
'87 5KCSTQ


> Message: 9
> Date: Tue, 1 Feb 2005 21:01:34 -0800 (PST)
> From: Tony Hoffman <tfh400036 at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Re: 84 4ksq Timing Belt Catastrophe...HELP!
> To: quattro at audifans.com
> Message-ID: <20050202050134.48339.qmail at web53907.mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
> 
> I can't hold back, although I think to some extent this is fruitless. I think 
> what they are getting at is it isn't torqued right, and an impact is a crude way 
> of working on a fine german machine. 
>  
> I have to dissagree. I'll have to say, I've done timing belts on about 200 cars, 
> some Audi's, and some not. I've NEVER used a torque wrench, and only once had a 
> minor problem. However, that was due to not tightening the crank pulley bolts at 
> all on a Rabbit (ooooooops). Say what you will, but it seems to work fine. If 
> you ocasionally work on your car, it's probably not a bad idea to use a torque 
> wrench. However, experience gives you a feel for things like this, and a torque 
> wrench is just "good insurance" then. 
>  
> Tony Hofffman
> 
> Bernie Strub <quattro at strubranch.com> wrote:
> It seems you misunderstand my meaning. Once the cam sprocket, water pump
> and crank pulley are assembled, with the belt setting correct alignment
> between them, it doesn't matter at that point if you rotate your engine to
> *any* position, as long as the relative timing stays the same. Tightening
> the crank bolt with the impact may move the system a bit, but there is scant
> possibility of the timing changing, if you have the belt tension set
> correctly with the water pump.
<snip>