Oil change and timing adjustment
Tonight, after reading 17 research papers in three topic areas, I decided to change my oil and adjust the camshaft timing a little.
I found this link on tdiclub.com:
http://forums.tdiclub.com/showthread.php?t=215202
It basically lists the steps to adjust the cam timing so that it’s back in spec, and hopefully fix the idling issue most people have. On my car, the engle idling RPMs pulse at seemingly random intervals. Since I did the timing belt change myself, and I had that whole ordeal with having to replace the crankshaft flange and seal, I thought maybe the timing was slightly off.
In VCDS, the Torsion value was 2.0. According to tdiclub.com, the valid values are between -2.5 and 2.5, with 0 being ideal. I followed the directions and eventually got the value to -.5, so I called it quits after that. The first attempt must have put it out of spec because the car wouldn’t stay idling, it would just quit. After I adjusted it to -.5, I had to clear the error code (camshaft sensor out of range, or something like that) and put everything back together.
I also changed the oil. It seems like a waste to extract out the 1000 mile old Mobil1 TDT 5w40 oil, but I just want to make sure no metal bits, or extra material from the sealant or flange remained in the oil. I replaced the oil filter and put in new oil, but left the Amsoil BP90 bypass filter. That filter I won’t replace until 50,000 miles.
I’ll do another oil analysis at 10,000 miles from today. Hopefully the wear rates are better than the VW spec oil.