Second Question of the night.

Once i've finished the interior i want to get under the bonnet in tip top condition.

I have a coolant leak somewhere that leaves a little trail of coolant in the middle of the V of my engine, it creates a right stink as if burns off. So when i tackle this I'm going to do a few other jobs. (I'm assuming its from the thermostat tower) Could it be somewhere else?

My mechanical skills are pretty good, so I'm going to tackle the following:

Thermostat Housing + Thermostat
Timing Chain Top Tensioners
Rocker Cover Gaskets
Water Pump
Aux Belt

Anything else i should do while I'm up to my elbows?

I'm not confident enough to do the lower tensioners, so at 81k I'm just going to leave them until i can afford to pay someone else to do them.

All help appreciated

Thanks

Reg

 

Take the time to do some preventive maintenance on your knock sensor connectors. The two knock sensors connect to the engine harness at the thermostat tower, and the connectors are designed to clip onto the small steel brackets on both sides of the thermostat tower. Over time, small coolant leaks at the tower can eat away at the connectors, and start causing intermittent knock sensor codes and "Check Engine" lights.

Ask me how I know!

While you've got the thermostat tower off (which will involve either a crowfoot wrench or removal of the intake manifold), clean the knock sensor connectors well on the outside, check for condition, spray the contacts with CRC contact cleaner, and then figure out a way to keep coolant away from the connectors permanently. One method is to buy some larger-size heat shrink tubing and shrink it over the cleaned (and plugged in) connectors. Then you can reattach the connectors to the thermostat tower brackets with a stainless steel zip-tie.

 

Once i've stripped the top half of the engine to gain access to the Secondary tensioners, how much more work is needed to change the primary ones. Bearing in mind i want to change the water pump at the same time.

Is it within the means of a relatively amateur mechanic?

Also one other question, will i need to lock off the cams in order to replace just the secondary tensioners?

I suppose my main worry is about the engine timing. I would quite like to replace the whole lot, Primary, Secondary tensioners and the chains too, but after doing all that how easy is it to redo the timing on the engine.

Reg