At the end of it all, I ended up using the starter motor to pull the crank pulley bolt out - I levered a 19mm wrench on the crank bolt tight against the axle. I then pulled fuses for the fuel pump, radiator, etc. (anything that was clearly inoperable given the state of the motor) and ran the starter for a crank - worked like a charm!
I replaced the crank bolt to spec with the new one from GAP, and torqued per the Bentley manual. In order to get the torque required without spinning the crank shaft I used a 2x4 wedged between the driver seat and brake to apply brake pressure to the front wheels while the car was in 5th gear. I also re-installed the serpentine pulley attached to the crank pulley.
With all the pulleys back in place I decided to time the engine. It is a very simple motor to time, especially without having to worry about the intermediate shaft gear. Since the 16v distributor runs off the cam gear instead of the intermediate shaft I only had to worry about the timing of the crank gear and the cam gear. The cam gear was left unmodified throughout this whole process so I simply lined it up with timing marks on the valve cover. The crank gear has no timing marks so far as I'm aware. There are timing marks on the flywheel that can be observed by pulling off the green cap on the transmission.
The green cap was actually tricky to unscrew - I certainly couldn't do it by hand and it had a really wide hex pattern which I didn't have the tool for - another annoying situation where solving a simple problem involves the purchase of an expensive tool. I decided instead to take a large wood boring drill bit and gently push the sharp end of it into the plastic cap and used an impact driver to reverse torque it out of the transmission casing. This technique worked well and did minimal damage to the cap so I was happy to avoid the cost of buying a bit simply for this purpose.
With the the gears properly timed I put the timing belt on - I used a belt purchased from BBM intended for this conversion - I believe it is an ABF belt but not exactly sure - I simply took BBM's word for it. I used the manual belt tensioner which replaced the hydraulic mechanism previously described. Not sure exactly how tight the belt should be - I've read you should only be able to turn the belt 90 degrees without significant effort - I think I'm probably a bit short of that much tension, but I plan to let the belt settle in its installed configuration which should make it easier to tension properly before I run the motor. The serpentine and accessory belts were easily reinstalled - the serpentine tensioner works quite well (although its annoying how it interferes with the coolant flange described earlier). The accessory belt has a gear driven mechanism which I tried to tighten as much as possible - I had problems earlier with the belt slipping on the power steering pulley when under pressure - this was caused when the car hit a raised sewer hole which damaged the tension system - at least it didn't take the oil pan off when it happened.
With the belts back on I did a few manual turns of the motor to make sure the valves were clearing and to check the timing - everything appears to be okay. It's tempting to run the starter again just to give the motor a few cranks and I wouldn't mind testing the compression, but I need to remember there isn't a drop of oil in the block so I decided against it.
I moved on to the wiring - while I intend to keep the stock wiring in tact, I'll need to reroute a few things - the distributor senior, some of the grounding, the MAF sensor, and a few other things need to be reconfigured just because their positioning has changed. The challenge is pulling the wires out of the old cable wrapping without damaging them - I got a good start on it but its a long process that requires patience. I got the fuel injector cables back in place - looks like they might be a tight fit against the upper intake manifold. I'm not too worried about the rest of the wiring.
I also compiled a short list of what else I need to do before I can try to start it up:
- re install and properly time the distributor
- run remainder of electrical and sensors
- tap upper manifold for air intake temperature sensor
- install upper intake manifold
- install air intake
- fasten downpipe to catalytic converter
- re-plumb ISV and PCV systems
- install vacuum lines
- solve throttle body issues (re-run cable and determine strategy for throttle position sensor)
- reinstall radiator
- refill fluids
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