Well I just figured if I was gonna tear it apart,I may as well put it back together with a new pump, but your right, if I dont need it I should just save the money and time for later.

So what do you think about the head gaskets? does it sound like I need to mess with them at all? (based on what I've told you)

Also, what are your thoughts on the timing chain/camshaft?

I'd save money on the cam as well, because you'ld have to do all the lifters as well. HGs will make themselves known. Chain can be inspected, but should not be much slop at your miles. It is better to have some fun with Rover than spend all the time working on it. Plus, don't think SWMBO is gonna leave you without a "list" to be completed by her return.

if your doing the front cover do the chain, do you really want to pull it all back apart again? put a chain in it and forget about it for the next 100k.

At 75k you right about at the point where head gasket let them selve be known 75-120k .
Me i would do the headgaskets. but i do preventative maintenace, not if it aint broke, dont fix it maintenance.

Have a few questions about the front oil seal. One of the shops told me mine was bad so...I went ahead and ordered one, RAVE says you need a special "LR" tool to remove and install it, is this something I need or can it be "pryed" out and "tapped" in with something else? Also it says it won't need any lube, but then it says to lube crank with some Retinax grease? What is this Retinax, can I use something else? Torque specs, say 200 ft. lbs., on crank pulley, my wrench only goes to 75, can I just go as tight as I can and then put a cheater bar on and go for more?

Air tools will do you very little good as EVERYTHING has to be torqured when reassembled, they do help with disassembly but you run the chance of galling a bolt (steel bolts into aluminum block).
you can use any grease for the front seal (white litheum), you should alway grease oil seals to protect them on startup.
No special tools need for the seal, drive the old one out and use a large socket to install the new one, try not to line it up exactly where the old one sat (there is play 1/4 -3/8 inch) set it up to ride on a new surface.
putting a cheater bar on a torqure wrench defeats the purpose of the torqure wrench,even using an extension on a torqure wrench makes it in-accuarate, a 1/2 torqure wrench is $23.00 at habor freight.

what did you pay for your reader? if you are just using it to read codes and monitor temps there is a very very cheap solution if you have an android smartphone. There is an app called torque($5) and a obdII bluetooth adapter that syncs to your phone and the app reads and clears codes as well as gives you live data including coolant temp. The adapter I use is the ELM327 bluetooth adapter ($20 shipped on amazon) works great for me. Or the ultragauge is what people on this forum swear buy and its only 70 bucks I don't know what you paid for yours but these are some inexpensive options, you may need this cash for future repairs... good luck with your projects

I guess I didn't make much sense, I meant put the cheater on a regular ratchet! If one can be had for $20, I will get it, I was just thinking they would be a lot more, my 75# torque wrench was $250, but then again its a snap-on. Thanks for the tip on the seal too!

I wish I would have known about the app, I paid $175 at Autozone!!!

I'm sure I will have a few more ?'s before its all done, but thanks so far!:)

Update!
So far I have the water pump off and not much else. Its storming pretty good here and when the lightning was getting a little too close I would go in the house for a few minutes, made 1 trip to parts store in the rain delay and fought with the fan for about an hour...the vise-grip/prybar technique would not work for me. Instead (I removed AC compressor (not sure if I was supposed to but it gave me some much needed room) put a towel over the water pump pulley and then put vise grips on the pulley. I put the vise-grips in between the AC idler?? pulley and the power steering pulley, and the damn thing nearly fell off in my hands!! It was so easy!! I will add a picture when I put it back together so that it may help some people. I'm doing things a little out of order I guess, I was going to take the pan off first, but it was raining bad and truck was wet from driving home from work (and hot), think I will hit it tomorrow. On another note, the water pump that was on there looks brand new, a little dissapointing because I went ahead and ordered a new one, because both shops said mine was bad and it was so covered in grease/coolant I couldn't really tell, I figured why the hell not? I cleaned the front cover up a little bit so I could actually see all the bolts and unhooked the sensor above the crank. Thats where I left off for the night. All that took me about 3 hours, I know, I suck but I went slow trying not to fubar anything as I went. I think I'm gonna go with the "block o wood in the crankcase" for the pulley removal, I was gonna use the "crank the motor" method but forgot before I took a bunch of crap off.

Do something that will also help you big time! A) Get a sharpie and a box of zip lock bags and label every screw to what it goes with! Especially the front cover screws because I do believe they are different length!?! B) Take pictures of it on your phone or camera so if you have a question, you already have a picture of what it should look like again!
Just a few things I have learned over the years!

you should have just lossened the the crank bolt before you removed the belt, it would have made your life so much easier. They is a reason thing are done in sequence.