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Tue Mar 03, 2009 8:55 am

vugbug68 wrote: my Mahle dual thrust bearings have tangs on both bearings but my case only has a groove for one, (its a stock AH dual relief case)

Should I cut a groove in the case or file it off the bearing?

I've always filed one tang off of the Mahle dual thrust.

Tue Mar 03, 2009 5:29 pm

SRP1 wrote: Not everything Berg did was correct either, what purpose would there be in removing a tang that VW engineers felt needed to be in place.
Sometime design decisions are not based on what will produce the best performance or reliability. Sometimes it's what will be the most repeatable and just good enough to get the job done. They may have felt that a tang might cover their butts if their tolerances got a little sloppy.

The VW engines were probably not assembled with what we could consider TLC. They were slammed together as quickly as they thought practical. They were not ultra balanced like many people do. They didn't have perfectly matching combustion chamber volumes. They probably didn't spend a lot of time with the rocker arm geometry to get it just right.

Just because Wolfsburg did something a particular way doesn't mean that it is necessarily the best way.

Scott Novak

Tue Mar 03, 2009 6:16 pm

Another one for filing the tang off, Never had a problem.

Tue Mar 03, 2009 11:28 pm

any reason why to file the tang as opposed to filing the case. only one i can think of is bearings are cheaper to replace then a case, but being careful with a file, it only takes a few minutes and the bearing fits nice.

Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:48 pm

Just go ahead and file the case...you can't do any major damage that will affect the life of the case. You can always file the tang off the bearing later, if you somehow botch your attempt at filing the case.

I filed a slot for my double-thrust cam bearing into my mag case and it works fine...6 years later, same case, first 1776 cc, then 2017, now 2332 cc. Still looks good as new...it's just visible near the upper right of this photo:

Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:05 am

neil68 wrote: Just go ahead and file the case...you can't do any major damage that will affect the life of the case. You can always file the tang off the bearing later, if you somehow botch your attempt at filing the case.

I filed a slot for my double-thrust cam bearing into my mag case and it works fine...6 years later, same case, first 1776 cc, then 2017, now 2332 cc. Still looks good as new...it's just visible near the upper right of this photo:

Thanks for the pic. I had already filed the case and my bearing/cam fits perfect. It just seemed easier to do that.