I'm going to do my timing chain tomorrow (just ordered my parts from Jorily). Any tips? I had a good read through the Haynes guide, how much is a necessity? I noticed it mentioned taking the oil pump to bits, is that a must or can i not just drop the sump, get the timing cover off, change the chain. And refit?

Any suggestion would be a real help!

Once you've dropped the sump and removed the oil strainer (which you need to do) one of the two components (or both) of the oil pump are likely to come out anyway - they are only a couple of gears (one with a shaft), so it's no big deal. Just keep everything nice and clean when you remove it and replace it carefully and it'll be fine.

Depending on the bottom pulley you have and the way the engine mounts are adjusted, you may find you have no room to remove the bottom pulley past the chassis rail (some have lots of room, others with a 6-rib lower pulley and the engine towards the driver's side will not have enough clearance). If that is the case, then you can loosen the three bolts that hold the aluminium bracket for the engine mount TO THE BODY enough to get it out - I've had to do this a couple of times, and it's only a few mm that you need to drop it by. Make sure that you're not loosening it too far, and that the engine won't drop if you do so, and of course do them up afterwards.

Be careful when removing the oil pump drive gear from the camshaft end - some are tight and can be sods to get off, but remember that you will not be needing the cam sprocket again so you can use that to help remove the gear.

Other than that it's a fairly easy job, just be aware of the possibility of the lower sprocket being marked up incorrectly (not sure how many of them were, there's a post on it here or on the other skoda forum about it).

When I did mine I too had to drop the engine down slightly but that wasn't a huge issue.

The most time consuming job was scraping the old gasket off the sump!

Took me around 4 hours to complete I think so it's not a huge huge job just a bit faffy at time.

Phil

Whats the best way to get the engine to TDC before starting? Mine doesnt have a distributor, the Haynes gide is very unclear on how to do it!

Thanks for any help!

Hey guys, thanks for the suggestions. Finally got round to doing it today. The difference it has made is impressive Well worth the hassle! Think If i did it again I'd choose not to do it on my own!