Head gasket repair, rotating the engine

When you put everything back together you're going to be working with the block or the reciprocating mass on top dead center number one on top dead center and everything works off of that so you need the engine to be able to turn it doesn't make a damn what you do or wear marks are when you take it apart other than if you put everything up on the marks as you're ready to disassemble but lets you see where you are and you're not rotating anything against your valves or anything like that so you just put it on TDC and take it apart once you get the head off then you just be rotating the bottom end the reciprocating mass the Pistons and there's nothing for them to touch hit or anything else You need the very carefully inspect your piston height

 

If you're following the repair manual, it has some explicit steps of making sure to rotate the crank 40° or so away from TDC before doing things like installing the camshaft bearing caps (which pushes the camshafts down and will push some valves open).

In that sort of unhelpful way of repair manuals, it never comes right out and says why it's telling you to do this ("dude! don't push the valves into the pistons!") but the instructions are there, so it's good not to skip 'em.

 

AFTER the head is OFF, you can rotat the engine without an issue.
When you're ready to install the head, put the #1 piston at TDC. You'll see that
the mark on the crankshaft will be in the correct position.

I used that cam idea, works great! Made it super easy to set up the timing!

 

FYI #1 piston is at the passenger end of engine, the end with the pulley and timing chain, referred to as the “front”.

what’s the miles on it?
Was EGR ever cleaned, and if so when?
How’s the oil consumption?

(last link in my signature is Repair Manual engine section. On a phone turn it landscape to see signatures.)