2004 A6 2.7t s-line. Long story short, I can't find the crank locking pin and I want to know what the 2 other (not the upper and the lower) pipes attached to the radiator are. Am I completely screwed if I don't find the crank locking pin (especially considering that I will be removing the valve covers to change that gasket)?

I'm in the middle of doing a timing belt and valve cover gasket change. I've had a slight oil leak, and when I changed coil packs recently, there was oil on the ends of the coil packs...

To do thee jobs, I purchased the kits from blauparts, and rented the toolkit. At this point, the accessory belt and the timing belt covers are off. The AC compressor is off of the radiator and propped up to the side. The upper and lower radiator hoses are off, and the carrier is extended. However, there are still 2 smaller hoses attached to the radiator. What are these hoses, and can they easily be removed? Ideally, I would like to pull the radiator off if I could, because that should give me more room to work.

I did skip one step along the way, because I could never find the coolant drain for the engine block (for that matter, I couldn't find a drain on the radiator, and just drained it from the lower hose). To get around that, I figured I would just spent extra time flushing water through (there was definitely a coolant mix before, because the old coolant is disgusting and brown).

My biggest hold up right now is locating the crank locking pin. I've marked the old timing belt (which looks fine) and have rotated everything to TDC. However, I haven't been able to locate that locking pin. I did see something that I thought might have been the pin, but I don't see how in the hell I could possible get to it, since it seems to be behind the frame, and it seems pretty far back underneath of the car.

I've read references to pulling off the fender on the driver's side, or removing a turbo pipe that's in the way of the lock. The last thing I did before calling it a night last night was to drain the oil and remove the filter (doing an oil change during this fun anyway). I'm hoping this gives me a little extra visibility above the oil pan.

Anyways, I appreciate all of the help. Thanks.

 

see threads 5 & 7 for crank lock pin location. Not easy to get to, but possible. I use a 10mm box ratchet, because of cramped quarters.
https://www.audiforums.com/forum/aud...-a6-up-174154/