Identify my engine problem. Photos. MKV Gti K04

[dubdubdub]

Help,

I was driving under normal circumstances the other night, and this happened to my engine.










It appears to be a hole in the camshaft cover and you can see the cam shaft. Oil is everywhere over the engine bay.

Car did not suffer in power and I didn't notice until about 50 kms after it happened due to smoke billowing out of the engine bay at idle.

Currently the car is not being touched until I work out what the problem is and what I can do with it.

[Idle]

Something that probably shouldn't have been there (spanner, socket, whatever) has been picked up by the cam and pushed through the cover.

You'll need to remove the cover and look for something missing — if everything's in place and there's no other obvious damage then you might get away with just sealing the hole.

I've had it happen a couple of times with gearboxes — more years ago than I care to remember, the speedo drive shaft on a 1923 Dodge 4 worked loose and went through the bottom of the box when reverse was engaged.

Some years later a Lancia Lambda 4-speed box was destroyed by a woodruff key from the clutch assembly that some bright mechanic (not me — I'd never needed to touch it) had dropped inside the box and left there.

[Guy_H]

Thats a pretty easy one.

Cam follower not replaced, it fails, end of fuel pump contacts the camshaft & brakes the end off the camshaft.

Will bet lot's of beer on it.

Sorry its happened to you - these followers need to be checked regularly - every 15,000 kms for a car driven hard, 30,000 for stock ones.

[dubdubdub]

Cam follower is only 5,000 kms old. Very frustrating!!!!

So basically, new camshaft, new cover, new fuel hpfp.

[Guy_H]

Cam follower is only 5,000 kms old. Very frustrating!!!!

So basically, new camshaft, new cover, new fuel hpfp.

Unfortunately you will have to strip it to check, but from the pictures, its pretty obvious its something directly related to that that has let go.

The early ones had a 2 piece camshaft. If the cam is ever damaged, then it chews the followers out really quickly too.

Hope its not too bad for you.

[Fixxxer]

Guy, is this type of failure only associated with people running hpfp's? Or is it possible on stock / stage 1 / stage 2 cars running stock fuel pump aswell?

What would cause damage to the camshaft, and then the failure of the follower after only 5000km?

Fixxxer

[Guy_H]

It's just a wear & tear item. It's a traditional "cam bucket" arrangement (Flat rotating face directly on the cam lobe) that rotates & has an oil supply. This sort of "lifter" arrangement is pretty rare in modern engines (most use a roller bearing now - even the TSI setup in the MK6 GTI) so you don't see the issue.

The phasing out of zinc in the oil doesn't help - it was the best oil additive for these type of lifters.

Most people who mod their car tend to check these (or their mechanics do) more often. I certainly know a workshop who has a cabinet full of nasty failed ones, and 90% are from stock cars.

5000kms? I have seen new S3's here (Stock) with the hard facing worn off, and had others with 40,000kms where it looks brand new, so I couldn't nail it down to a single specific thing. Oil must play a part.

As I mentioned earlier, if the cam lobe is marked or worn, it will dramatically escalate the wear on the follower. So if its already marked - it's a failure waiting to happen!