How to Remove Front Engine Cover 2010-14 Volkswagen GTI

Hi. I'm Mike from 1A Auto. We've been selling auto parts for over 30 years.

In this video, we are replacing a front engine cover in a 2010 Volkswagen GTI. You may do this if your front engine cover is leaking, or if it has rotted away. We are reusing our cover, but if you are replacing or reusing the cover, the process is the same.

The manufacturer recommends when doing this job you replace the front cover bolts, the engine crank seal, the engine crank bolt, the motor mount bolt, the front bracket bolt on the engine, and you will also need some RTV, or engine sealant.

This is the coolant reservoir we're going to be removing. We want to start by taking out this 10 mm bolt for the washer fluid fill. 10 mil out. Now we're going to pull the washer fill out of the way. Next, we're going to pull off the cap. Make sure this is cold, because otherwise you're going to have pressure, and it's going to have a lot of coolant come out. We're going to pull this hose off. We're going to use some pliers to take off the clamp. And we're going to use a right-angle pick and get in underneath here to break the seals. Sometimes you can just twist the pipe back and forth, the hose. So if you go right around, that'll break the seal, and then pull right off.

Next, we're going to disconnect this connector. You're going to use a small flat-blade screwdriver. You're going to pop it and then pull it right out. We're going to pull this wiring harness out of your way. We're going to use a T25 extension and small ratchet and get these two fasteners back here.

Make sure you want to have a drain bucket underneath, because you're going to lose a little bit of coolant. Pull this out of the way. We are going to put a hose clamp on here so that we don't lose too much coolant, but there is going to be coolant in the reservoir you're going to lose. Take this clamp off. We're going to use our pliers again. Extend the hose. Grab the hose and pull, twisting. And there's our reservoir.

We're going to pull the wheel off. These normally have caps over it, so on your vehicle, you may have those. You're going to use a tool from the kit in the trunk. It's got like a hook on it. You put it in the center of the cap and pull straight up. This vehicle does not have that. So I'm just going to take them off. A 17 mm socket and the breaker bar. It's going to break them free. This is the passenger side of the vehicle.

We're using a 2-post lift to raise and lower the vehicle. At your house, you can use a jack and jack stand. All right, we're going to take these lug studs out. Volkswagen uses lug studs for lug bolts, not lug nuts. So this one, when you get to the last one, you're going to want to make sure you put pressure on the wheel, because of the lug studs. The wheel will fall. Grab the wheel.

To access the front of the motor, we're going to take this panel out. I'm going to start by taking these T25s out one at a time. So there's one fastener here. There's one here. One here. There's two right here. And underneath, there's one right here. One here. One here. One here. And there's two right here. And this one's missing one, but there's normally one right there.

We're going to pull this lower shield off to give us more accessibility. We're going to take these other ones off from the other side, from the driver's side. Then it's going to pull straight back.

Next, we're going to take this intercooler pipe out. This comes off the turbo and goes to the intercooler. I'm going to take these two Torx out. It's a T30 and a ratchet. These bolts are captured, so that it won't pull out, so they'll just stay there.

We're going to pull this intercooler pipe out. There's a little lock ring here. We're going to pull it straight out. Hold it. And you should be able to wiggle it right out.

Now we're going to do the same up here. A little lock right there. Pull it out. It comes out of the way. You can separate it there, but there's no need to, since we are able to separate it in these two spots. That gives us the most room to work.

Now we're going to pull the belt off. A tensioner is right here. I'm going to use a 17-mm socket, and we're going to use a breaker bar, but you could use a ratchet. And you're going to pull it towards the back of the vehicle. That's going to loosen the tension for the belt. You can slip the belts right off. You're going to want to hold a little bit so you don't get it stuck like that. There you go.

This is a specific Volkswagen tool that you're going to need to pull the crank pulley off. It's going to hold the crank. If you don't have this tool, it's going to be rather difficult to get this bolt out. You might be able to use a impact to get this out, but we're going to use this tool to get it out. In there. Then we're going to use a 24-mm socket for the breaker bar. The tool is going to hold the crank pulley. Once it's pretty loose, it should come out fairly easily. There we go.

And we're doing this now while the upper engine mount is still in, so that the engine is pretty stable so it won't shake around. So make it safer to do this right now.

All right. Immediately after taking the crank pulley off, something you don't want to forget that we actually forgot was you need to install a crank bolt with a spacer. Volkswagen actually has a specific tool number. It is T10368 washer. We're just going to use a nut in the crank bolt. You want to put it back in very carefully. The reason you want to do this is because all these gears are not attached to the crank right now, and they could fall off, and then your engine would be out of time. So just put it on loosely, and you're good. Just finger tight.

We need to gain access to the front of this engine. We're going to have to take this out. This is what is known as the noise pipe. So we're going to start by taking this clip out up here. Just use a screwdriver, just like down below. It pulls out right there. I'm going to take this Torx out. It is a T30, and a ratchet.

There's the hose right here. And then pop the hose out, the retainer. I'm just going to set this on the side.

Before we pull this front engine mount out, we're going to have to support the engine from the top. So I'm going to pull the oil cap off. And then we're going to grab underneath this shield, this cover. Pull straight up. We're going to use some holders to hold the engine up here with this bracket and this bracket right here. We're going to put the oil cap back on so we don't get any debris or bolts or anything to go down there.

This is how we supported the engine from the top. Next, we're going to have to pull this front motor mount out. We're going to start with taking this bracket off. Now we're going to use a 13-mm socket and a ratchet. Next we're going to pull this bolt out, the same 13 mm. Then we can pull that bracket right out.

Next, we're going to pull this pipe out of the way. There's a little release tab right here. It just comes right out. I'm going to pull this bracket out of the way and use a 10-mm socket and the extension and ratchet.

We're going to take this 10-mm nut out and also the 10-mm bolts right there. We're going to take these two top motor mount bolts out, and then we'll pull this coolant hose out of our way. I'm going to use an 18-mm socket on an extension with a ratchet. We'll just break that one free, then we'll go to the next one. Break the next one free. And while you're doing this, the motor may drop down a little bit, but that's why we have our support. That's one bolt. That's the second bolt. Now we're going to take this bolt out. I'm going to use a 16-mm socket and then an extension and a ratchet. Then we're going to take this back one off too, 16 mm. Now we should be able to pull this motor mount out. Get that out of your way.

There's three triple-square fasteners that hold this engine bracket to the engine. I'm going to start with this one. I'm going to use a triple square. It's a M12, which is 12 mm, on a ratchet. I'm going to loosen it up. Once it breaks free, I'll do it by hand, because there's not a lot of space in there. It's real tight in here, so we actually had to modify one of our bits because we couldn't get it in there with the driver to be able to get the bolt out. So we just trimmed ours down a little bit, and we were able to get it in there with a wrench and able to break it free. And that pulls out. I'm going to leave that one in for a second, and I'm going to try to grab the last one. I know that's in there, so I'll use the open end of the 13-mm wrench and break this one free. And it's loose.

So that's out. Now I'm going to pull this one out a little bit. So the bracket tree will come down. Now we're going to take take dipstick tube out. There's a fastener right here. It's a T30. I'll break it free. And there's a T30 right here also. I'm going to take it out. Pull the dipstick tube out. Dipstick indicator out. And now we're going to pull the dipstick straight out. Wiggle it back and forth. There it goes. Pulls right out.

All right. We're going to move this tensioner out of our way and use a 17-mm wrench and a small Allen. Pull the tensioner, and then there's a little hole right here that's going to keep the tensioner pulled. I'm going to leave that there right now. We're going to loosen the bolt for this pulley, so I'm going to have to take that off. We're going to take these Torx. They are a T30. There's 15 of them that go all around the front engine cover. The reason we had to pull that pulley off was to get access to that one there. We'll start down here.

All right. We're going to pull this bracket off next, so it will be out of our way. I'm pulling the cover off. It's a T30 again. I'm going to use a flat-blade screwdriver and just go around the edge and try to pry a little bit, trying to get the sealant to break free. Try to be careful when prying on this. It will bend the metal. It's just thin steel, and if you do bend it too much, you're going to have to replace it. Do your best, but it may need to be replaced. I'm just going to try to move this tensioner back so it's out of my way. To get the cover off, we're going to have to gain more access. We're going to have to pull this turbo elbow off and use a 5-mm Allen. There's three of the 5-mm Allen bolts.

So I'm taking off this 4-mm Allen on the boost control solenoid right here on the back, because the solenoid is in the way of the last bolt for the right angle coming off the turbo. With that removed, we can push it out of the way so that we can access the last 5-mm Allen bolt. That last bolt, pulled it out, and we're able to pull this out. And there is a O-ring right here. You want to make sure that stays there. You don't want to lose that. Pull the last cover bolt out. Slip the cover right out.

All right. Now we've got to clean up all this gasket area. We're going to use some Brakleen and a rag. Get it off. Make sure you clean it real well so the new engine sealant will stick. In some of the areas that just the Brakleen and the rag wouldn't work, a razor blade would work. Just lightly scrape it. We were able to reuse our cover, because when taking it off, it was not mangled beyond reusing it. But if yours does become warped severely, then you're going to want to replace it.

Now we're going to take off the sealer. I'm just going to use a razor blade, peel it off. You can use a scraper. It's a little bit tedious, but go all the way around. Scrape it all the way off. We're going to use a little bit of brake cleaner on this and a rag and wipe it. So there's a little area right here that's lifted up from when we were prying. I'm just going to use a little hammer and bang it down a little bit. And it's flat.

All right. Before we put some new engine sealant on this, what we're going to do is, we're going to replace the crank seal. We're going to bang out the old one. We're going to have it face down. We're going to put it on a piece of wood to raise it up a little bit. And we're going to take either a screwdriver or this is a little pry bar and a hammer. Just going to tap it down. There we go. Pulled out. Sometimes you can just pry it like this and peel it out. Just check in here, make sure everything looks okay. Looks like there's a little bit of silicone on there.

Now we got this area cleaned up. We're going to take our new seal, line it up. We're going to take a block of wood and put it on there flat. We're going to use a hammer and just hammer it down. So you want to make sure that you do not crush these oil valleys when you're hammering down on that seal. The seal needs to go down a little bit more. This block of wood only got us to there, so it's flush. What you can do is if you have a socket that will fit this perimeter of the seal, that would work. But we're going to use a seal installer. Just tap it down some more. And that's good.

So I'm going to use a little more break cleaner on the surface just to clean it up one more time before I put my sealer on. And we'll use a little more break cleaner over on this surface before I start my sealer. We're going to use some of our engine sealant. Put a nice little bead all the way around. This is a little too thick, but that's okay. Go around all the bolt holes. A little bit of oil right here that normally drips while you're setting there, so just wipe that real quick before you put the cover on. And we're going to put the cover on. Just ease it in there. Try not getting your fingers too much in the RTV, the engine sealer. And it's lined up. Now we're going to push it in.

Now we're going to take our new T30 bolts and put them in the cover. Before we torque them down, you're going to put them all in. So to get these two bolts to line up, we got to torque these two bottom ones down a little bit, because they're on a different surface, so a different plane. Snug them down a little bit. So to get the bolt from underneath here, we're going to move our tensioner and put the Allen back in so it holds it. It may take a little bit of maneuvering. And I'm going to start snugging down these bolts, but I'm not torquing them yet. I'm going to just get the whole cover even. But you're going to want to torque these in sequence, and the torque spec is Newton meters, or 5.9 foot pounds. That's for the first torque sequence. The torque angle on the second sequence is 45 degrees. It's going to be hard to get a torque angle meter in here, so do the best you can. 45 degrees is half of a 90. I'm going to make sure this O-ring didn't fall out when you're putting back together. If the O-ring looks like it's been damaged, you're going to want to replace it. Ours looks pretty good, so we're going to reuse it.

We're going to put the elbow back in. On these bolts, I'm going to just put a little bit of thread sealant and reinstall the bolts. I'm going to snug these bolts up with a 5-mm Allen. Hard to get a torque wrench up here, but the torque spec on these bolts is 9 Newton meters, or 80 inch pounds. I'm going to reach around on the back side of the turbo outlet and put these little 4-mm Allen bolts into the turbo boost control valve. It's easier to get to one of the bolts while I still have the engine bracket out. Now you can tighten up the bolts from up top. It's going to be easier on this turbo boost control solenoid. I need to move this wiring harness back there. Now I'm going to install this engine bracket. Remember, we're putting our new bolts in here. I'm tightening these bolts. It's really hard to get in here, so we used a tool that we made. You going to want to torque these to 40 Newton meters and then another additional 180 degrees, the best you can. There's the tool that we cut.

But we're going to drop the vehicle down to put the front motor mount on, because when we install the crank pulley, we want the engine supported better so that it doesn't move around a lot, so it'll be safer. So we're going to drop that down now.

We're going to put our motor mount in place. We have the new bolts to install. These two are different. This one goes in the back of the mount on the body side. This one goes in the front on the body side. That stud holds a bracket. Snug all these bolts down. You want to make sure you get them all in first, and then we're going to torque them. We're going to torque these engine mount bolts. These are going to go on the engine side. The torque is 60 Newton meters, and then an additional 90 degrees. I'm going to go another 90 degrees, which is a quarter turn. This is good. I'm going to torque the engine mount to the body bolts. These are 40 Newton meters and then an additional 90 degrees. And 90 degrees is about a quarter turn. Now you can remove however you supported your engine. We're going to install our dipstick too. This may have been a little bit easier if you'd done it before you put the engine bracket on, but it's not impossible to do it now. Align it in the hole. Push it down. We got our dipstick down. As you can see, it goes down to where that lip goes right to the hole. This is going to be difficult whether you reuse the cover or replace the cover. Use a little bit of force, and you should be able to get it down.

Now we're going to put our crank pulley on and take this off very carefully. Take the bolt out, if you had the special tool or whatever you can use in place of it. Here's the nut. The crank pulley has a key, as you can see right here. We're going have to line it up at the top. Slide up in, and then put our brand new crank bolt in.

Now we're going to torque our crank bolt. I'm going to torque it to 150 Newton meters, or 111 foot pounds, and then additional 90 degrees. One way to get 90 degrees, we're going to mark the bolt, I'm sorry. And then we're going to mark 90 degrees. It's a right angle, so it's fairly easy. So now we're just going to get the bolt to there.

On our serpentine belt tensioner, we had put a bolt and a nut just so that we could move it around and stuff with ease. So we're going to take that off so that we can put the pulley back on. Install the pulley, the washer, and the bolt. I'm going to snug that up pretty tight. All right.

So we're going to install our serpentine belt. We're going to have to go over the alternator pulley up top. I'm going to come down around our AC compressor, and go around our crank pulley next, and pull it down around our tensioner. And now that it is set, I'll be able to pull our holder out and take tension off with our 17-mm socket and ratchet. And then we can pull out our Allen. And now it's good.

I'm going to put this little bracket on with a T30. Snug it up. And now we're going to reinstall our intercooler pipe. I want to make sure that these clips are pushed down. On this one, you can see it's out. All you got to do is push it in. You ought to be able to push it in. Just give it a little force until it clicks. And install these two T30s. I'm going to use a T30 socket and a ratchet and snug these down.

Next we're going to install this cover this way. It has all these grooves you need to line up underneath here. Pops into place. And then you have these little Torx that go in. We're going to install this side panel shield. Install all your T25 bolts. Now we're going to install the tire. Line it up with the holes and hold it, and we'll use our 17-mm socket to put our lug studs on, or lug bolts, whatever you want to call it.

Now we're going to torque the lug studs to 120 Newton meters in a star pattern. When you do it in a star pattern, it makes the wheel go flush to the brake rotor properly.

Install the two T30 bolts for the dipstick too. Reinstall the dipstick. Install this bracket. It goes right here, right over that stud in back. Now, we're going to have to put this nut on that stud down there. It's kind of hard to reach. We're going to use a 10-mm socket and an extension. But to prevent the nut from falling out, I'm going to take a little bit of grease. A little bit of grease on the nut, like so. The nut in the socket. And then the nut will not fall out. You can slide it down there and then torque it down just snug. We're going to put this other 10 mm down here. You can do the same grease trick if need be. This bracket goes right on top with the bolt. And install this bracket right here. Two bolts. A 13-mm socket and a ratchet and extension. Tighten these down.

Next we're going to install this noise pipe. Line it up. Press it in until it clicks. Put this hose on. This bracket broke off, so I'm just going to slide it in here. Click that in that hose.

We're going to install the engine cover. I'm going to hook up the lower pipe to the reservoir. Push it on. Once it's on, we can pull off this clamp and get it out of our way. We're going to move this hose clamp with a pair of pliers. Just get it lined up and squeeze. Get it on there. It's best to try to get it in the same grooves that it was in before or close. Put this down in here. Reinstall this hose. With pliers, move this hose clamp.

Before we install these wires around here, we're going to install our T25s. Snug it down. Remember it's plastic, so you don't want to go too tight. We're going to install this wiring harness into these clips. We can plug in our connector until it clicks. We can install the washer fill to the bracket and use a 10-mm socket and ratchet. Then we're going to top off our coolant. You want to make sure you use Volkswagen-approved coolant. When doing this, you're going to want to make sure you run your engine for a while before you drive and check the level to make sure it's okay. In theory, there should not be any air in the motor, but just in case the vehicle burps and you need to add coolant, you should do so. We'll reinstall our cap until it clicks. Mike:

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