yeah but thats their big ends going after never having had a proper oil change out of warranty
something like every cinquecento ive heard recently? (not that theres been many of them, the rust 'n' accident gods must have claimed nearly the whole lot by now!)
ANYWAY
got the things home
changed
went to a works night out (meet 'n' greet the team of our new PET-CT centre)
came back to find....
THEY FIT!!
<aceventura> liiiike aaa gluuurve...</aceventura>
so pumps in, belts half on ("trapped", at least), as are both inner covers, and the alternator pulley, plus the engines no longer jacked up
however i now have two "oopses" to remedy (hence a degree both of joy and sadness in my ice cream)
1/ accidentally had the wrench set to FAR too high a torque after trying to get the crank bolt out, and then started doing up the mount bolts. the smarter / more experienced 'n' wise amongst you might be able to guess what happened when i tried to put 125Nm thru a 25Nm bolt. hopefully you can tell me how to fix it too... thanks to the meaty thru-bolt, properly torqued other retaining bolt, and the weight of the block on the fitting i dont think itll be going anywhere soon, but it looks bad, yknow?
2/ i seem to have "misplaced" my head dowels ("put in a safe place and forgot" is another good way of putting it, as is "lost" and "gleefully threw away in a fit of madness")..... which has shut the whole thing down for the night, just as i was seconds from putting the new gasket on and resting the head atop it. garn.
worst thing is i cant remember what they look like, are made of, or even if they were there in the first place (...surely the car wasnt built without them, was it??)
well...... work tomoz.... nighty night!
EDIT imageshack works on THIS computer..... christ dan/doug that was lucky! nice souvenir..... and we now have a scary example of what extreme rope-burn can do

*goes off to double check new belt is centred on sprocket... and whether the astras missing any teeth*