Out Of Your Vulcan Mind

Hello , My name is Norm . I live in Alberta Canada
I work for FoMoCO and I only drive german cars.
I am a 4th year ASSET apprentice .
I am a moderator on the TriumphRAT.net forums in the Speed Triple section , My handle there is Dieselgeek .

I did try the search feature of your forum and it seems as broken as the one on my usual site.

The dealership just took a 2000 A6 2.7t in trade with 138,000kms on the clock . New rubber , very very clean. I am lead to believe the maintainance schedule was followed to the letter, but I have not looked at the folder of recipts that came with the car. yet . The price for me 6000$

I will be performing the UVI and I woud like to know what to look for as common failure points and what not.

There is a noise at the front of the engine . Well it seems like the front . It starts at startup and stays , it seems to match the revs , if it does not match it follows . If that makes sense.

I have only been hands on with the car for about 15 mins.
She drives really well , shifts just right and has only a slight vibe at speed , I suspect tire ballance .

I appriciate any and all pointers .

Thanks for your time and efforts .
Norm

2.7Lturbo

noise at the front like form the belt area? could be a stuck fan clutch or bearing/belt issue

tester123

You already have a partial answer. Car parked + engine rpm raised and noise still present eliminates wheels, and most likely trans related issues -may not be all the time considering flywheel etc..

So, start checking belt issues like 2.7LTurbo mentioned, belt tensioner bearing and, alternator and other components driven by the belt. If it is not one of those, it could be water pump and worse cam related stuff. Just start with the obvious & visible / reachable items first. Good luck.

Out Of Your Vulcan Mind

Thanks for the replys , the fan clutch seems to be operating smoothly .
but my only referance is fragged 6.0L and 6.4 fan clutches .

I will pull the belt off tomorrow and feel the idlers and water pump .

eejimm

Easiest thing to try is to pop off the serpentine belt, start the engine and see if the noise is gone. If it is, then it's either the power steering pump, alternator, or a bearing (or several of the above). If not, then it's in the timing belt group or the cam area, which will be a lot more work to fix. (you probably know this but there's no problem running it w/o the serp belt for a while since the water pump is driven off the timing belt). Also, check the paperwork to see when the timing belt was changed - they last around 75K miles, and it's a high interference engine, so that's extremely important.

The 2.7 is a lot of fun, but it's complex and takes effort to keep everything working. Sounds like you're the right kind of owner for it, though.
Jim

Just Me

Common problems:

1. timing belt, water pump, idlers, tensioner need to be done every 75k or so and its a bit involved
2. control arms fail quite frequently
3. motor is stout. Various rubber air plumbing bits are not.
4. Obviously turbos must be cared for - all history now, but if put away hot, poor oil, infrequent changes the turbines will fail earlier than the motor
5. manual or tip? Manuals are tough. Tips less so.

As to your noise - it is likely an external rotating part, unless the motor has been badly abused. Idler, accessory, etc.

G

Out Of Your Vulcan Mind

Ok, so I think I narrowed the noise down to the component that is top center on the engine . there seems to be a bit of play in the pully and there is a significant coolant leak at the front of the engine . it does not seem to be external. leak shows signs of coming from a higher component. but if the water pump is on the timing belt area , like the 1.9l TDI that I am familiar with .
What is the component at the front center ?
And is it possible to for that to leak coolant or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Any ideas ?
thanks

Out Of Your Vulcan Mind

Also its a tiptronic.

eejimm

The power steering pump is right under the throttle body, it's the top center pulley on the serpentine belt. Bearings go bad, or the pump internals, and it starts to make noise. But noise can also be caused by air being pulled into the suction side lines for the power steering - it's worth checking to make sure all the clamps on the hoses are tight. If you replace the pump, make sure you use CHF-11S steering fluid and not regular power steering fluid to flush and refill the system; regular PS fluid will kill the new pump and the steering rack.
If there's coolant coming from the area behind the steering pump, that could be from your aux cooling pump - it's an electric pump designed to move coolant through the turbos after you turn off the engine if the temperature gets too high. It and the hoses do wear out and leak. Unfortunately it's under the intake manifold, so it's a lot of work to get to it. Make sure you're really seeing coolant and not steering fluid - CHF-11s is green mineral oil, and can look like green anti-freeze.
If you really want to learn about this engine, check out this self-study manual for the 2,7t: http://1977.ucoz.ua/audi_s.pdf
Jim

Out Of Your Vulcan Mind

Thanks Jim,
What I am seeing is def coolant . Orange residue.
Going through the records for the car I can see no evidence that the timing system was ever looked into . oilchanges were done january and june every year since it was new .

If I set 1000$ aside for getting the timing taken care of, can expect a good reliable unit for the next 75K? In regular driving conditions .

Just a little more info , inspection of the chassis shows a little weeping of oil at the transmission output shaft . otherwise the car is clean ,with the exeption of the above mentioned coolant leak.

I know this is probably a dumb question , but I have to ask . How do you check the trans fluid level in this car ? Cant find a dip stick anywhere.

Norm