Metal chunk in Timing chain/cover

Hi Guys,

Over the last month or so I have been experiencing issues with my 2011 GTI. I had the car stall on me with clutch engaged when I pulled up to a set of lights. Clutch engaged, car struggled to start until I gave it a little throttle.

After that happened I have been experiencing a RPM drop once I engaged the clutch. This also came with increased vibration in the clutch pedal when first pressed but not at the bottom of the clutch stroke. However, not every pedal stroke caused the vibration or drop in rpm. Probably 50% of the time and comes and goes in patches.

Fast forward a week and clutch pedal gets soft for the first 50% of the pedal every 1 in 30-40 clutch strokes but feels normal at the bottom of the stroke. When it happens, the pedal is 100% normal for the next 30 strokes.

Bled the clutch system in case a bit of air/grime was causing the issues. It seemed like the 1 in 30 strokes was fixed but the vibration was still intermittently there.

On the weekend, go to pull into a car park and a loud grinding/chrunching/whirring noise from engine bay. Sound coming from timing cover and sounds like the chain rubbing against something. Pull up maybe 100 meters away and I'm dreading the "Timing Tensioner failure" issue.

Get it towed to the shop and mechanic pulls it apart, find this bit of metal sitting "in the timing chain, above the crank sprocket". Now the while goose chase of what the metal is and where it came from. There was a bit of metal shavings in the sump so considering thrust bearing? Would give reason to the clutch issues with a bit of crank walk happening?



I'm wondering if someone here has seen this or has any idea where we start looking. Appreciate any help you guys can give.

And yes, The tensioner is the old style one and will be getting replaced with the revised one. Car has 100,000 km (60K Miles) on the clock.

Cheers

Okay Looks like it's a crankshaft thrust washer. Turns out I might be looking at a crank walk issue... The clutch is a BFI stage 2 SMF with about 15,000km on it. These have the 2500lb pressure plate as opposed to the 1900lb stock one. Would this be a contributing factor to the crank walking?

I'm hoping I stopped the car quick enough to prevent as much damage as possible. However I haven't been able to find anything about repairing these motors from crankwalk and every thread seems like new engine exercise. Car is well out of warranty and I have a feeling VW wont even talk to me as the clutch is a contributing factor.

Bottom end is being pulled apart today to see if its salvageable or time for a new engine..

Update,

Crank had around 4mm of end float. Main bearings shot and metal everywhere in the bottom end. Game over for this motor. My options are:

1. Replace with second hand short block to go with the existing top end that still is fine
2. Replace tall block with an motor from a wrecked car as VW wants $9000 for a base motor which is out of price point.
3. Slap the motor back together and try to trade it in and hope it survives enough to get some money for the car. (Not ideal)

VW doesn't do a new short block. Only long block which is very expensive. Hence why I am trying to source one from a wreckers.

I'm concerned that if I put it all back together with the same clutch I have on this motor the amount of increased force from the pressure plate is going to result in another damaged thrust bearing and I end up back at this point in a years time.

This seems like a uncommon issue on these forums as there is not a great deal of threads regarding it. However any tsi/tfsi/fsi motor above stage 1 a replacement clutch to hold the torque will have a upgraded pressure plate!? It's not as if I was doing anything extreme. What have you experienced with these bottom ends in terms of how i would preserve the motor from failing again?

You can find used long blocks for ~$1000 all day long.


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I haven't heard of any reports of crank walk with this engine. You could always ask on the big turbo thread in this forum if any of those guys have had issues with stronger pressure plates since every manual trans car on that thread would have an upgraded clutch setup, but the times I've skipped through that thread I hadn't seen any issues with crankshafts mentioned.

*****2.0t said:

You can find used long blocks for ~$1000 all day long.


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Click to expand...

*****2.0t- you've seen plenty of engines through your garage, you ever see/hear of this happening before?

Pooley said:

I haven't heard of any reports of crank walk with this engine. You could always ask on the big turbo thread in this forum if any of those guys have had issues with stronger pressure plates since every manual trans car on that thread would have an upgraded clutch setup, but the times I've skipped through that thread I hadn't seen any issues with crankshafts mentioned.

*****2.0t- you've seen plenty of engines through your garage, you ever see/hear of this happening before?

Click to expand...

Nope. Even when I put main and rod bearings in my motor I somehow forgot to order thrust bearings and reused the old ones. They now have ~123k miles on them without issue.

The issue is companies can't accurately design a clutch so they just add a million pound pressure plate which I'm sure has got to be taking a toll on the bearings.


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*****2.0t said:

Nope.

Click to expand...

In the mid 90's I had a 1990 Eagle Talon TSi AWD. Great car, but one day I was downshifting as I entered a hard corner and my engine shut off when I pressed in the clutch. Lost power steering and brakes instantly. Scary stuff but I manhandled it around the corner. Turns out a transmission mounting ear on the engine block cracked so when I pressed in the clutch the transmission rocked away from the engine. That was with a 100% factory original car with under 50kmi on it. Crazy stuff. Not VW related, but I guess it shows anything can happen, even to a stock engine. Never heard of others having the issue I had with that engine, sometimes shit happens.

I was talking particularly about this motor. Yes I've seen destroyed thrust bearings before, never on a TSI though.


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Thanks for your input guys. Yes seems like I got very unlucky with this motor having the thrust bearing fail. 2.0t unfortunately here in Australia I'm struggling to find even a long block for under $4k aud. Seems like there's only a handful around the country at wreckers and people are naming their price. Will have to keep hunting and see if I can source one for a reasonable price.

Clutch pedal on this set up isn't insane hard or anything. Feels like maybe 30% harder to depress then the oem plate. But yes I feel adding a shit load of force just to hold the plate can result in issue somewhere else arising.

Does the DSG and 6MT mate up in the same way to the block? As in, am I able to source a motor from a DSG car and fit it to my 6MT chassis/transmission or are there some differences that wont let it mate up?

Looks like I can source a Tiguan 147 motor and turbo. CCZ engine, same motor as the golf GTI if I'm not mistaken everything should bolt up? Can anyone confirm this for me?