Well just to confirm, I fitted all the last brackets and covers tonight and took it for a rip and all appears well, no oil leaks, no engine related codes, no start up rattle experienced, no diesel noise when warm, pulls really sweet through the rev range and idle has dropped back to 750 rpm as expected now the battery has had chance to recover.
Still running the original thermostat but will get around to fitting the mod or the standard 88 deg stat at some point but just wanted to run it as standard for a bit.
I think I am really pleased as it was a mammoth task and I reckon all in around 45 hours + and £800 with all the tools. It took me a long time as i had to make a few tools and was taking my time in the beginning but the days soon slipped by. I reckon I could do it in half the time if I had to do it again.
The pic below is about as far as i got stripped down, I was running out of parts to take off at this stage.
Thanks to everyone for their support
This youtube walk through i found really useful.
This will get you some of the way and the place i bought the seals and press tool
http://www.beisansystems.com/procedures/m62tu_vanos_procedure.htm
This was also very helpful
https://www.germanautosolutions.com...62_m62tu_cam_tools/m62_mstr_cam_tools_diy.php
If attempting this then a decent 27 mm socket and 3/4" or 1 " breaker bar and a 4 - 5 ft extension bar is a must for undoing the crank bolt, using the vanos press tool and tightening the crank bolt.
if you have a 1/2" breaker bar, no matter how long you will smoke it doing this procedure.
I must have had over 100 grip seal bags with the write on strips to label every part that came off and I took hundreds of photos of every part of the engine before I stripped down each stage.