amwafa

Good news: I ended up taking the advice of Airbag and CRuby and continued on where I left off without putting the engine in TDC. I was able to successfully change the cam chain tensioner pads (pain in the butt to remove and put back), and after making sure everything lined up with my original markings on the chain, cam, and cam caps as well as having the correct spacing between cams, I put everything back exactly how I found it (and oiled the cams where the cam caps surround it) and started the engine up without a problem. Lesson: make sure to put the engine in TDC before starting work on it, but if you didn't, it's not the end of the world. Just mark everything, then double check and triple check them before starting the engine.

Thanks very much for the advice!

Airbag

glad you are up and running. its an audi, pain in the *** stuff is kind of implied