I have rebuilt my engine, why would I not have done? I bought my land rover for the sole purpose of having a hobby and a cool car to drive. It should be youngsters like me that you are encouraging to follow you in your foot steps rather than down heartening and winding up, I'm not some dickhead chav speeding round in a little nova with no insurance causing mayhem and crashing all the time ffs. When I bought the 90 the engine injested a flakey piece of metal from the filter box housing which knackered a piston and left a load of little imprints on the head. The garage repaired this under the 3 month warranty that they provided me with and then anything after that has been done by myself. The engine did spew oil out all over the place before (there's loads of my topics on here about the planning, going about and after thoughts of pretty much everything that I've done, including the rebuild and timing belt changes etc. so don't say I haven't done it) which is why I wanted to sort the problem out. I've always been interested in tinkering with stuff, and engines are my new hobby - why do you have a problem with that?
I've torqued the head down as it should be working from the centre out in a spiral, bit by bit until it was tightened right down as to not warp or damage the head. As for the tappets, I am going to do what you said (run the engine for 15 - 20 seconds) and adjust them as per your method. Last time I just adjusted them as they sat after a couple of turnovers of the engine (which was down to luck and chance at getting them right). It's not a major deal what so ever and it doesn't seem to have done any harm last time I did it, and that was a full short engine rebuild (excluding crank, oil pump etc.). The only stupid mistake is that I put gasket goo on the head (which I thought was the right thing to do), but I have sorted that now and it wont be done again.
I'll only learn from my mistakes by trying things so stop digging at me. Considering you're a mechanic, you must have been in my shoes at one time and you will no doubt have learned everything that you know from someone older than you, someone who most probably wasn't being a patronising arse hole.
Leave me be
-Pos