Well today the head gasket turned up so got to work on the A8 for the first time since taking the head off, felt nice to make a good start, I bought a flat hand sander and used some 1500 wet dry with wd40 to finish the mating surfaces off after scraping with a Stanley blade, I didn't go mad just took some of the surface corrosion off.
got the head bolted up today used all the locking tools as I should and managed to put the timing 180* out, for some reason there is a crank locking hole on both sides of the crank, spun the engine over by hand and thought lovely, I then took the cover off the other bank just to double check and that's when I realised, luckily being a V engine I turned the cams back slightly so all valves where seated, took all the bolts out the cam sprocket and spun it 180* and locked the crank in the right position, then pulled the cams back to tdc
I was going to put the chain covers on but lost some time with the timing, I did manage to change the timing belt on the HP pump too and clean up the injectors and the injector ports plus the glow plug holes and a few other bits, I didn't start till gone 2 so not a bad day and the worst of it is over.
I'v got the I left pipework and manifolds all need cleaning out as it was a job I had been meaning to do, get the exhaust mani bolted back up and coolant hoses, the hole engine needs a good flushing out and it'll be primed and ready
Some pictures of the head and block mating surfaces prepped and the head bolted on
it looks a bit different now as if packed all the holes and put the cam cover on loosely just to protect it.
Block
Cylinder head
Bolted to car
