Well, all of the parts and tools arrived, I had the day off yesterday, so I jumped right in. I started out by pulling the intake manifold off in order to remove the timing chain tensioner.
Upon removing the intake manifold I found quite a bit of oil had blown back into it which is a bit concerning. I went ahead and pulled the exhaust manifold as well and found oil in cylinder 1. Proceeded to pull the spark plugs and all four had oil on them which is a bit of a concern that there is oil in the combustion chambers. Decided fine I will address that after I remove the timing chain.
I started by taking off the top guide and started getting nervous as you can see from this picture comparing old and new there is a large piece of plastic missing. So this will be a bit like where’s Waldo, or more likely Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.
After removing the timing chain and guides I was able to fish a few pieces out with a little grabber. Before showing the picture I would just like to say that I am a bit pissed that step one of this process did not say remove oil dipstick, in fact, I read back through after mangling the dipstick and fighting to get the assembly extracted but nowhere does it say remove dipstick. Well, the dipstick runs down through the timing chain guide on an R56 N12 engine, I will use pliers and straighten it back out. Now back to the plastic dilemma. Here are the guides and what I was able to fish out after removing the guides, unfortunately not nearly enough, there is also a piece in a hole halfway down the engine, picture is misleading as that hole is 11 inches down from the top and the gap is just over an inch wide, extraction will be difficult. Next, I dropped the oil pan and look at the mess. Unfortunately, I have not found enough of the plastic to account for the entire missing piece.
At this point, I have consigned myself to the fact that I will need to pull the cylinder head and inspect for damage, clean and find all of the plastic I possibly can. I am also starting to accept that my engine may need to be completely rebuilt top to bottom. What this means though is more and more money. Money that I do not have to spend.