Again, many opportunities are available: the radiator out means you can turn it upside-down and back-flush it with the garden hose or shower hand-held sprayer. Spray the cooling fins from the engine-side of the radiator, to push out the dirt and bugs from years of trips to the 7~11. When it goes back into your truck, it will now give you better service…all for a few moments of attention.

And before starting out, be sure a good space is cleared for storing the parts you’ll be removing. Removing a part amidst clutter, and trying to find a place to put it results in a frustrating job. If you take the time before you start, you eliminate 90% of the frustration naturally built-in to haphazard mechanical tasks. If your work area is neat from the start, it sets the pace for a successful repair. In my home-improvement work, I always clean up before and after each phase of a project. I do the same for mechanical repairs. It provides clarity, locates missing tools, and gets rid of empty containers that get kicked around. Take out the trash. Eliminate distraction and confusion. Take out used shop rags. You have a 4-hour repair ahead of you that might take days to complete because you can only work on it 20 minutes a day: make your work space accommodating to a job well done. Clean up after each session, or resolve to start the next session with a clean up and tool re-organizing. You’ll have continuity to the task, and you’ll always know where you left off.
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The book may tell you a different approach, but you need to start by disconnecting the battery. This does more than eliminate shorting out stuff when you spill that Keystone beer on the starter motor: it also affects the ECU, which monitors electrical components. Put that nosey bizzy-body to sleep while you’re working by disconnecting the battery. When the job is finished, and the ECU wakes up, it will monitor the system, and adjust things accordingly, without starting rumors and gossip about the affairs that went on the night before.

Where to start from there? It’s all gotta be done, but a good starting point might be removing the fan and water pump pulley, then the crank pulley. The crank pulley has 4 small bolts and the larger center bolt which is 19MM. Designate a ½” drive ratchet with the 19MM socket for turning the crankshaft…you’ll be doing a lot of that. You can counter the loosening of the four smaller bolts by holding the center bolt with your ratchet or box-end wrench. Be sure to put the small bolts in a sandwich bag or a container where you won’t lose them. You don’t want to put them back on the crank pulley since you need to put the pulley on and off several times during the operation, for turning by hand (to see the timing mark).
Next, make a cardboard bolt holder for the timing cover bolts. As there are different lengths that go in specific places, this is an important detail. Draw a couple indicators of where the top is, and where the bolts go…perhaps a crude outline of the two pieces that make up the timing cover. Then remove the timing belt cover.

If you take the time right now to clean off the cover, inside and out, it is ready to go back into place clean. Then store it thoughtfully. I took the additional care to soak it with mineral oil while it’s out, then before re-installing, wiped the mineral oil off. This rejuvenates the plastic.
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Be careful to not lose the gaskets in the cover’s grove, and make sure they’re grease-free: when the timing belt goes back in, you want no oil or grease anywhere near it. Have a stash of clean rags just for those areas crucial to clean operation.

Now it is time to make sure the #1 piston is top-dead-center, and that your timing marks are all aligned. Take the distributor cap off, noting (by the book or the marks you’ve placed on the distributor) where #1 firing position is. It should be just past the bottom cap clip. I marked mine so it’s a no-brainer, and is now second-nature to me. But only because I practiced sure-footed learning.

Use the center bolt to turn the engine to where #1 is at TDC. You can put the bottom timing cover back on, then the crank pulley, but there are timing marks on the timing belt pulleys and oil gear to show you where the timing marks are. Before we go any further, let’s highlight a problem that occurs all the time: the timing mark for the cam gear. It is a little bump on the cylinder head, and NOT THE TOP OF THE HEAD. This distinction is the difference of being off one tooth, and that difference is huge.

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You can mark that little bump with a drop of paint or marking pen. The main thing is to know it's your primary timing mark for the cam.