Just wanted to post about the issues I've encountered while rebuilding/swapping my B6. As many know, my original B3 suffered from excessive blow-by. I drove it as long as I could...about 5K miles before it got too bad to run. During that time, the oil would get very dirty and nasty, very quickly. Since the valve train on the B6 was shot, I decided to use the rockers and shafts off the B3. They were in excellent shape when I replaced the head gasket on the B3 only 20K miles ago and showed very little to no wear. When I pulled them off now, to install on the B6, they look like they have 300K miles on them. The shafts are scored, several HLAs were collapsed and the rocker bores are fried. I managed to piece together a complete valve train from three different motors, but this is something to keep in mind.
These motors have lots of "sliding action" in the valve train. The sled type cam followers, shaft mounted rockers and aluminum cam journals are all very sensitive to oil contamination. It doesn't take long to trash things with dirty oil. It is also important to use an oil additive with ZDDP. Modern oil contains little to no zinc ....as opposed to oil even 10 years ago when these motors were designed.
These motors have lots of "sliding action" in the valve train. The sled type cam followers, shaft mounted rockers and aluminum cam journals are all very sensitive to oil contamination. It doesn't take long to trash things with dirty oil. It is also important to use an oil additive with ZDDP. Modern oil contains little to no zinc ....as opposed to oil even 10 years ago when these motors were designed.
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