Hi. Any of you removed the engine / timing cover in x350 4.2 N/A? I unscrewed all the screws except one. It is covered by a mount from the power steering pump and AC. The access is an 8-ring wrench but the bolt is long enough that it won't come out. Is there any way or I need to remove the pump and compressor to remove one screw? If so, congratulations to the engineers I have to replace the head gasket.

 

While mine was a supercharged versus NA setup, the brackets you have pictured look identical to mine and so I do think the brackets need to come off, which requires removal (at least from the bracket) of the power steering pump and AC compressor. It's the worst part of the job, and when I removed the AC lines one of the bolts broke off in the compressor. Here's a video of the head removal on a NA XJ8, and they removed the brackets in this video: .

 

As I think about this... if I recall correctly the issue isn't just the one bolt you have pictured, I think there are multiple bolts that go through the AC/power steering brackets and thread into the timing cover. You're not seeing those right now because they are under the power steering pump and ac compressor.