TMB

No, it's correct. It's to set the piston inside the lifters to approx midway to allow for auto adjustment. I had the same trouble setting mine but it worked after leaving them to bleed out. Mine were not new lifters though. He is going to leave it overnight and see what happens.

That sucks.

Bugger, yeah keep trying.

Because once they bleed out to where they need to be they stay like that. That's how they're designed. They will only fill with more oil if they need to when in normal use to take up clearance from wear etc. That's how they self-adjust.

Yeah

Possibly item 22 on here?... https://skoda.7zap.com/en/cz/fabia/fab/2006-453/9/903-903055/

Yeah it doesn't work like that because you have to leave the preload on the two adjusted valves so they can squeeze the oil out before moving on to the next cylinder. It's a proper pain.

I can't think of how it could be done any other way apart from doing it on a warm engine to let the thinner oil bleed out quicker but Skoda say to do it on a cold engine

Yeah, hope so mate.

I wonder if it needs a longer wait between the adjustments with the lifters being new. It's strange because the first time you adjusted the brand-new lifters without any engine oil in them I would have thought they would have adjusted straight away, otherwise how on earth did they do it at the factory. Maybe the lifters they used were completely empty but yours might have had some manufacturing lube in them. Who knows

Wait 30 mins between doing each cylinder's valves and you should be good. I initially tried 90 mins but found that 30 was enough. What I did was briefly start the engine after adjusting the two valves on each cylinder to check it started OK. You can run it briefly with the rocker cover off without any problem. Oil doesn't spray everywhere. Make sure you're doing them in the right sequence. Number 4 cylinder is where you start for the overlap and is obvioulsy the cylinder closest to the gearbox. Overlap 4 adjust 1 Overlap 2 adjust 3 Overlap 1 adjust 4 Overlap 3 adjust 2

Plugs were in when I did mine. Yup.

I'm a DIYer. Used to work in a Ford main dealer where I learned a lot. I was working mostly with brand-new cars though. Doing the pre-delivery inspections etc. Always been mechanically-minded.

I couldn't do it day after day for sure.

Yeah, it's not easy. My back was killing me from leaning into the engine bay when I did mine. Haha. I'm sure it'll be worth it for you when it's all done

Not long I suspect

Check him out smearing the gasket with grease at about 6:30....

They might get away with it but it's not good. I saw one guy on YouTube who smeared the whole head gasket with grease Yeah, block is just alloy. Liners have to be stronger.

The liners have a copper seal at the base to seal against the coolant getting in the oil, that's why you don't want to turn the engine with the head off if the liners are not held down as it can break the seal, which is not good. Seal is number 3 here..... https://skoda.7zap.com/en/cz/fabia/fab/2003-225/1/103-103002/

It has removable cylinder liners as opposed to a block where the cylinders are bored into it.

Yeah just realised it was an old pic because the head wasn't cleaned up. My bad.

Should be fine. Have faith in the Simply Clever gods Yeah, that's what I did.

You might have missed my comment but was wondering why you put the old head bolts back in, not that it really matters on this engine.

Not ideal after you've compressed the gasket though.

Damn, that's a shame but as long as you've got them in without having to undo the head bolts. Just noticed it looks like you used the old head bolts, which is fine on this engine but thought you'd bought new ones?