I've removed all the bolts, soaked it with wd-40 and tapped it numerous times with a hammer, but this little bugger will not come off. Its obviously fragile so I'm hesitant to pry on the upper protion under the water neck. I have and its now cracked.
Any suggestions? The engine is still in the car. Its a stock A12 in a '71 1200.

Have you got the water pump off? If not put a piece of wood against it and hit that bit of wood with a hammer.

(Check page 3 of A12 strip on the Mildman website)

Page 4 has some timing cover removal action - with pry bars. I didn't damage the timing cover doing this:

You can do it with the pump on? I thought those studs went all the way through.

Nah - you do need to get the water pump off first - I asked as I wasn't sure if you were having trouble with the water pump or with the timing cover.

Well, I got the cover off, in three pieces. Anyone got another?

In my own experience, I found that the best way for me to get the timing cover off was to
Remove engine & place on proper engine stand
Remove pulley & water pump.
Remove oil pan
Remove timing cover.

Re assemble in reverse order.

It's actually less work than you might think if you have the gear to do it, & it beats bending over double, trying to work in a confined space. At least it does for me.

I'm guessing that you didn't read the manual before you started this exercise.

grab a few razor blades and hammer them into the gasket in different areas. Breaks the seal. Never failed me once.

Quote:
I am going to assume the oil pan is still on.

The timing cover has STUDS on the bottom that pass through the oil pan. You have to remove the oil pan first before you pry. You probably know this by now.
Sorry, no spares.
2 weeks ago there were a pair of B210's w/A14's at Pick N Pull in Newark.

Quote:

I read the manual several times.

I took the engine out of the car to make my life easier and even had the oil pan off.

The cover seemed to be corroded/molded onto the water pump studs. A torch and liberal amounts of wd-40 werent enough.

I carefull went around with a small screwdriver and broke the seal all around it before trying to carefully pry it off. It was really quite hopeless because of the way it was stuck onto the studs. The studs were broken off trying to remove them as well.

Now I'm praying i don;t leave the studs broken in the block trying to remove wahst left of them.

Yikes - that sounds real tough!

You did everything right the cover just wanted to be a biatch.

Any A12 timing cover will do from any 1200, 120Y (Honeybee), 210, 310...

If the studs had broken off before hand that definitely sounds like you were headed for trouble I missed that valuable bit of info.

There is a cheap tool called a stud extractor in Australia (made by Kincrome). I'm sure other companies make them too.