I've been pretty lazy about getting this sorted. Lost my motivation to get it going somewhat.
I got the ugger dugger gun and impact set, got that pesky crank bolt out at last. Pulley off and BOOM - clean as a whistle at the crank seal and oil pump. WTAF.
That was about 2 weeks ago. I totally gave up at this point until today.
So, I cleaned the engine and subframe down thoroughly. Twice. Then I've set about taking off everything that I've replace gaskets on, lathered them up liberally with hondabond and refitted.
In doing so I think I found my leak. It was (unsurprisingly) my own fault. I must have fixed the original leak prior to tuning with my gaskets, then created one immediately adjacent with my new oil pressure gauge take off. Things now make more sense. I couldn't for the life of me figure out how oil had got to the bottom side of the intake manifold without there being a single trace of oil from the top end. Zero leakage from rocker etc. Well, the oil pressure take off comes from the high pressure oil switch, so pressurised oil was probably spraying in all directions making it nigh on impossible to pinpoint the source.
Great stuff. So time to reassemble and test you say? Nope, I'm afraid not. 2 reasons.
1) Crank bolt torque - Same situation as earlier - I can't lock the engine easily.
2) I ordered a low profile valve bolt/washer set. A Chinese knock off obviously, not paying £90 for a Skunk2 set. It arrived. 1, bolt, 1 washer. Cheeky robbing cnuts!! After some back and forth with the seller they're sending the rest out. Clearly knew what they were doing and tried to fob me off, unfortunately for them their picture and description worked in my favour with the folk at ebay.
I'll wait for that to arrive and build it back up as far as I can, just leaving the bolt to torque. I'll get the GF to try holding on the brake again but that didn't work for untightening (although I guess that takes even more torque so slim possibility for success?). If that is a no go then I'm going to get a £60 lightweight underdrive pulley and immediately chop it up so it fits. I'm thinking mount it in a drill and chop the A/C off with a hacksaw to get a nice clean and even cut. That'll leave the recess for the crank pulley tool in tact and hopefully not be too far out of balance. Thoughts?
Oh, it needs chopping down so it fits inside the subframe by the way. The only pulley I can find that fits out of the box (and still has the crank tool recess) is from America, £90 and £80 postage. Then how long to wait?