I replaced all the control arm bushing and ball joints after I cussed more in 2 hours then I think I ever did during my 6 years in the Marines. Now I'm just waiting for the coil isolators and my rusty rotors to be sand blasted and turned.
I then had it on my agenda to start her up and do a compression check. First thing I did is drain the old oil to check it's condition just in case. Damn glad I did as it was full of water. Rut RO! Then, I felt a bead of sweat on my forehead as this wasn't a good sign. Keep in mind this is a numbers matching vehicle with a rather rare interior package that I was hoping to restore to almost perfection.
In addition to finding water in the pan, further inspection of the engine revealed it was missing 2 freeze plugs on the passengers side. NOT GOOD.
With that in mind, I went straight to the kegarator and poured a tall glass of Mirror Pond beer to ease the pain of what I was about the witness.
WARNING!! These Pictures may cause a heart attack if you are an old skool hotrodder, Die Hard Trans Am fan, or collector!
Oil pan off.........anyone for a mocha milk shake.
Ummm yeah......bad valve cover gasket and UGLY RUST on passenger side!
Even worse............check out the lifter valley.......and all the baked oil. Clogged lifter oil port found near #4 piston with clogged valley to crank housing same location. .........things got real hot!!
Then I nearly lost the beer from my gut as I looked down, saw something odd, reached for a rag and some brake cleaner and found THIS!!
Not good I know!! ,,,,,, but it Looks like I get to learn how to pin stitch a crack as I want to do all that I can to save this block!! And NO not with JB weld. If it doesn't work out, then the plans for the car change and I get a 400 to build and customize it with side pipes and 275's in the rear!
Or just get a 403 and change the numbers.
On the brighter side, everything else looks OK. NO broken rings, just very slight grinding marks on all the bearings and
piston walls. So far the heads look good too, but magniflux could tell me different on the passenger side. If they are bad, I will just go with the 70s heads (which I might do anyway). The engine has never been rebuilt so I can aim for .20 over. I think I may not have to turn the crank and can get away with new bearings at the journals instead. My local machine guy will tell me more later.