Depends on how long 'later' is, im sure plenty of people have just set it on the marks and had no worries. I was taught to do it the other way so thats how i do it.
It's just the method to time the the pump correctly. I happen to own a DTI gauge and the adaptor to go in the pump's arse. You do need the timing mark to know where to take the reading on the DTI. 4.2 toyota's use two DTI gauges, one for the pump and one with an adaptor to go down the glow plug hole to measure the piston stroke to get TDC perfectly. Welcome to borrow if you wish. Cheers,
I keep looking for the loose nut behind the wheel, but I can't find it!!
Chances are you're going to want to get someone to advance the pump to get optimal performance (i.e take it to someone who knows how to tune a td42t (aaron smythe) like the back of their thumb) so I wouldn't worry about getting the timing to factory spec
been shown what bits i need to do the job, and pump shop will lend the gear to do it, so my idea of popping down to the workshop and grabing our dai gauge is a waste of time,so back to sitting it on its marks and getting it done later