In my case though, it takes so much longer than I know a skilled mechanic could do things. A case in point can be illustrated by the picture above whcih does show the front timing cover back on the engine but this took way too long to do.
The good thing, however, is that I can now take things steady and when things aren't right I take the time to find out what the problem is rather than just "banging it on". When I tried to fit the front cover, no matter what I tried I couldn't get it to close up and it seemed to "pivot" on a high spot.
So, I took it off several times and then spotted I had fitted one of the chain guides wrong. But to remove it and fit it correctly the tensioner had to come off again as well, then it was necessary to check the alignment of the jackshaft sprocket which I did and had to ease the chain away whilst I rotated it to the correct place.
Doing all of that and then putting it back correctly took at least an hour but that has saved a great deal of grief. The front cover still wouldn't go on though and I spent more time lieing over the engine bay with my head where the radiator should be trying to work out what the problem was. Found it though - I had fitted a bolt which shouldn't have been there!
After that it just was just a case of bolting everything back up - and remembering that the reason 2 of the bolts seemed too long was because the alternator bracketry had to be there and I had forgotten grrrr!!!!
There's also time for philosphy - like "why do many of the bolts which prove to be the most difficult have to be at full stretch for me?" Then there's a time for courage - I had removed the clutch slave cylinder to hold the ring gear and jam the engine whilst removing the crankshaft pulley bolt. It didn't help of course (!) but now the slave cylinder needed to go back on and it wouldn't co-operate when I ws lieing safely to the side of the car (at full stretch again of course). No, the only solution was to crawl under the car which is suspended on axle stands and just get on with it whilst ignoring the fact that if anything went wrong the whole car would crush me. It was good to be back "out from under" when that was done.
Finally, with all that done you can see in the pic below my attempt to establish TDC using a dial gauge on the top of an extension down number 1 plug hole.
Looks pretty good, almost like I now what I am doing but I have to say that I was not at all confident I was doing things right here so decided to remember " the right time to say enough for the day".
I will return to this next weekend.
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