Pictures of the front timing cover with the radiator shroud and belts hoses etc removed and then a close up of the area where the leak was. in the first picture its the small depression under the spot of blue paint

Once all of the ancillaries were out of the way and in the case of the aircon pump attached but tied back I had to remove all of the front trim to get to the radiator holding bracket bolts which can only be accessed from behind the grille

once the radiator can be moved you just need to lift it 3 inches to get an impact gun on it to undo the Crank Damper bolt which is torqued to around 250ft lbs. I made a crank holding tool but it was too difficult to get sufficient torque on the bolt with everything in the way, just cannot get a long enough breaker bar down there without the possibility of damaging the radiator and I was not taking that chance!

I raided the body and put axle stands under the frame at the front and then jacked up the axle to get some work space under the car. I blocked it on the frame as you have to drop the axle to get the oil pan (sump) out once it is undone this way I could get it high enough to work under the car and drop the axle to get the sump out but the body was not that high that it was impossible to work in the engine compartment from the top either.

the cross member under the sump is removed by undoing 4 10mm bolts on either side and that leaves lots of room to access the sump bolts. the second picture obviously shows the sump removed.

The small break in the gasket is now clearly visible. it still amazes me that so much water can come out of such a small space. Proves what 13psi of pressure will do given a small hole!

the timing cover cleaned up and awaiting replacement parts (I wont remove a seal till I have the new one in my hands) and the play in the timing chain. There was at least an inch of movement (lateral) in the chain which really surprised me as the engine is running very well and pretty quiet. I have ordered a new chain and sprockets as well. The other thing that amazed me was the sludge in the sump. At least a half inch (12mm) of thick sludge in the sump up to the drain hole top. I saw the same thing in my older Mercedes when I rebuilt the bottom end and changed to synthetic, it really sucked all of the grime out of the engine and I had to remove the pan again about 6 months later to replace an unavailable seal and it too had about 5mm of sludge over a slightly bigger area. I can only assume the synthetic (which I change dot about 6 months ago in the landy as well) is doing its job and cleaning the gunk out of the engine. I use the shell rotella 5w40 synthetic diesel oil in nearly all of my cars. lots of zddp and good detergents. It was also interesting to note how whatever was in the sludge had really cleaned the aluminium of the oil pan