Formulating a Plan - 06/01/2021

Having time to plan and buy parts allowed me to get organized. One year after parking the car in my new shop, I had a wishlist:

This project centers around the timing system repairs and resealing everything I went through with brand new parts, but considering how far I needed to break things down to do the work, I added a few more items to my list. The big ones included a vanos rebuild, new clutch, valley pan reseal, and much much more. Actually, the list above is quite abbreviated as it doesn't include special tool purchases, consumables, parts I broke, or parts that I discovered needed replacing during the job.
Early on, I decided the easiest way to accomplish everything on my wish list with my sanity intact was to pull the entire engine + transmission and work off an engine stand.

After I decided what to buy, I put together a reference book that shows where most of the smaller items go on the engine. This ended up helping me immensely due to the long term nature of this project: