Originally posted by MeanGreen2: It's not a holding tool, it's an alignment tool.
(etc etc)
Look, you're going on at great length about the need for the proper tools... FOR A DIFFERENT JOB than the one under discussion.
The purpose of the alignment tool -- which, by the way, is hard to actually GET from Ford, which is why some books like Haynes suggest you make your own, like mine -- is for adjusting the fine alignment of the cam sprockets on the shafts. Which is not part of a timing belt change! All that's needed for a belt change is to keep the shafts right side up to within one tooth of the correct position, and that task can be accomplished with any old thing -- a few sheets of cardboard, for instance.
The thing to hold the crankshaft is also hardly necessary. If you simply set it in position, it stays in place well enough to put a belt on without slipping a tooth. If you do slip a tooth, the fact can be easily checked for and corrected afterwards. All of these special procedures are needed only if the cam sprockets are loosened on their shafts. (Which, if you do that, does want a tool to grab the sprockets by their rims or spokes... a tool that again is easier to make by hand than to get from Ford.)
