Yesterday I dismantled the head of an 8v and was expecting to find an after market camshaft as the previous owner told me it has a semi racing camshaft...but looking at it I found the VW/Audi logo stamped on it ... it this normal or was I fooled!! the previous owner gave me the cam spec sheet and there it had the name of the shaft, which the local garage told me are milled locally (Malta) when I mentioned the name...
ahh seriously?? never new that ... so that may be the case then...though I am not very happy about it because I would have preferred an after market product :/ thanks
don't you worry I already went through the first 4 or 5 pages of that section and didn't find anything...asked maybe someone has one for sale and didn't place it in that section yet
So are you looking for a different cam for the head you have removed this reground cam from? If so you need to be careful of what cam you actually need. This is because if the old cam has been reground, the cam base circle will have altered (smaller), meaning that the tappet adjustment shims if that type will be a dimension to suit the smaller base circle cam. These will be wrong for a larger base circle cam. Std shim tappet size is 38mm, later hydro tappet size is 34mm.
Hmmm bet I am not that technical about this subject but when I talked to the garage where I will be taking the head for some refurbishing he told me that he might need to increase the shims because who grinded the cam might have went a little too far...not sure about it though. Ah btw mine has hydraulic tappets. Seeing that you know your subject ... when I removed the hydraulic piston from the tappets I found pieces of metal in some if them which I later found out they were broken "metal O rings" that were fitted in one of the groves in the piston (as shown in the picture). Now non of the 8 pistons have it anymore as all were broken...do I need to replace them or will it do without?
this is the metal ring I found in one of the tappet's piston ... most of the others seem to have disintegrated...
The part in the first picture is the inside workings of a hydraulic tappet. The second pic shows the wire circlip which is a retainer that comes on the part above when they are new. It is true that the hydro tappet can cope with a slightly smaller base circle of a reground cam. But only just. It is very difficult to advise you without seeing the parts first hand. The measurements of the cam, the tappets may have been altered to run as solid tappets too. this is done by removing the the part of the tappet in your pic, then stripping it down and removing the inner parts, then using alternate parts to correctly shim the valve clearance. There is a lot to it. Hydro and mech tappet cams use different profiles of camshaft to cope with the way they operate.
bet they are still hydraulic except the one or two that were jammed because all the springs and so on were still inside the "piston" under the tappet...(bet the jammed hydraulic tappets were the cause for the rattling metal noise I used to hear!) maybe the guy at the garage will need to have a good look at it then...
