Saturday Morning
Timing belt change is straight forward. Read through the Chilton book (or whatever) a few times or three and try and buy/rent/borrow the right crank wheel puller. I bought one from Napa, it was the wrong one, but I managed to get it to work after some fudging about. Compared to yanking the heads off, it's a piece of cake. smile

Kaiser
Thanks for the compliment on the site - no big deal really. Regarding the knock sensor. I am a firm believer in leaving a car as the original engineers saw fit. I can't worry about every part, nothing will ever get done. I am going to replace all of those nasty small water hoses that seem to be all over this engine and leave it at that. I wouldn't have replaced the water pump, mine is fine, but since it came with the kit from Nissan, I'll do it of course.

Update
I got the passenger side head off this morning, yippee! I had to take it off with the exhaust manifold and cat on it. I can't see any other way to do it frankly. Even off of the car, I had to grind off all three of the bolts to remove the cat. Cripes, the cats weight like 400 pounds each!

Any suggestions for aftermarket headers? We don't have smog tests, but I would not want them to throw error codes. Just curious. The rest of my exhaust system looks like crap too, but no leaks.

I am so happy to get those heads off! I was seriously ready to give up, now I feel like I can get this done in a reasonable amount of time and expense. I just got back from Sears where I bought a $50 screw-out kit so I can remove/replace all of the bolts that broke or I cut. I need to sit down and order all of the parts I need to put it back together - blah. Heads will go to the machine shop later next week. I'll take the time to clean the block and engine parts while I wait.

I added a few pictures to the site today. One of the right side head off as I removed it and the engine compartment with both heads off.

I'm blabbing here but .... I also have an oil leak. It's either the rear engine seal or the front transmission seal. In addition, I have a 5 speed and I am still on the original clutch. I'm going to wait on these repairs until she's up and running again. It would be a bit easier to remove the tranny now, but I've got enough to do! :p