Cam timing with the pulley and front covers still on

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This has come up from time to time. Mazda specifies that you set the cams as follows:

Timing Belt Marks.jpg

which is fine if you have taken off the cam belt covers and the front pulley hub.

However if you're just doing something with the cams or lifters and everything down below is still all covered up then Mazda's pics don't help you much as far as knowing where to set the crankshaft.

I've been replacing lifters today. The good news is that the crank position in that diagram corresponds to top dead centre on number 1. So you can just use the timing marks on the pulley hub and the belt cover to line up tdc in the usual way for your model. I can't understand why Mazda made such a big secret of it.