Stripped the timing belt side down, cleaned everything up a little, and fitted a new water pump. The old one seemed fine, and the tensioner seemed fine as well. The belt however was shot.
Next is changing the crank and cam seals (waiting for one of them to arrive), transferring the tensioner spring screw onto the new water pump (more saying this so that I remember...), cleaning up the the rear timing cover and putting the new rubber foam seals on, and then putting it back together.
I also took the rocker cover off to find that the camshaft cap machine screws have been re-installed by someone even less competent than I am, two or three had stripped heads, and one had backed out completely (and also had a stripped head) - I've bought 10 replacements made of A4 stainless steel with torx heads instead of screw heads. Hopefully they will work OK... Some of the old ones might need drilling out... And one of the rear crankshaft oil seal housing machine screws needs drilling out too...
That is slightly concerning and I had to talk myself out of tearing the whole engine apart to make sure the rest of it is done right, thats called scope creep folks, you have to nip it in the bud and then regret it later when your engine blows up.
But in seriousness, I'm not taking the head off of this thing, the exhaust manifold bolts look unlikely to come out, and I'd have to wait on parts from Japan.
I MIGHT do the valve stem seals and put all the valvetrain stuff in an ultrasonic cleaner though... It would make me feel better.
or do you have that cooling plate to stop it dying?
