separating gearbox from engine question

[fab]

hi lads. the willie is back this side of the continent as i have a garage to play in now
anyways decided to do some serious maintenance such as timing belts,water pump, and the power steering pump.
so woke up this morning and decided what the feck might aswell do the clutch while i am at it! this is where I am stuck.
BTW I am doing all this with engine in car. i have also dropped the subframe a little on the N/S to help with some space.

I have removed what appears to be every bolt attaching gearbox to engine and wiring looms are out of the way. O/S drive shaft is disconnected also aswell as gear selector. BUT the gearbox will not come away from the engine. there is a little gap appearing when you look head-on but it seems something from around the area where the dog-bone bracket is holding it in place. Dont think the dog-bone mount bracket needs to come away from gearbox does it?

[katbloke]

youll have to take both driveshafts out, unless ive misread your post

[16v_paddy]

The dogbone bracket stays on the box, doesn't need to come off, just sounds like it needs some serious persuasion to come off

[zmaster2k]

removed the battery tray?

[fab]

katbloke you are right the N/S shaft is still on but it's off the strut so should really not be interfering with the seperation? but i will go down now to and remove said drivshaft. means i need to drain gearbox oil :(
zmaster2k yep battery tray is out of the way.
you could be right 16v_paddy.
will revert back in a couple of hours. thanks for the massively FAST replies nice to know I'm no alone :D

[katbloke]

could be stuck on splies from input shaft, guess depends when was out last

[zmaster2k]

get a bar in there mate bit o persuasion never hurt!

[fab]

there was a nut (besides myself) just under the starter motor that I forgot to undo.separation completed.

now,seeing as i was curious to see the state of the clutch plate I had to spin it around to undo the bolts and in the process have lost the TDC on the cam wheel/pulley.
i had it locked off but decided to use tip-ex instead so it is marked that way. only thing is when I move the fly-wheel around to line-up the tip-ex marks it does not seem to want to put the allen key fully in the little hole beside the engine number.have I lost TDC completely or will i be able to find it again?
sorry if the questions sound silly but i am pretty exhausted after 2 days of stripping all these parts out.
Do I just line up the tip-ex again and go for it or do i keep spinning until I find TDC again? parts not arriving till next week so i have a few days off to rest.
thanks a mil!

Some photos:

is this the clutch release bearing that needs replacing also?




here's the mess! now all i have to do is figure out where all the bolts go back in

[fab]

almost forgot..wouldnt be the same without some music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0s8u14Oj3k

[16v_paddy]

Don't worry about the TDC, can find it again quite easily with the box back on, if you look on the top of the box you'll see a hole cut out of it and a load of markings with a 1 & a zero.

With the box back on, look in that window & line up the mark on the flywheel up with the zero mark on the box & that's TDC