[Fortunateson]

Well Mart, and any other readers, I tackled the pistons today. I checked the dipstick again and as I remembered the pan was dry. Since my engine stand was tied up with a Y-block I decided to tip the engine on its front. First my brother and I removed the timing cover and the bellhousing and the starter. I had previously removed the water pumps. Up she goes and out comes an oil field! Support the block and run for my oil absorbent. Clean up most of the mess. We then removed the oil pan and the stubborn oil pump.mm I'm going to double check the length of at dipstick!

We went after the the piston #5 first and it was frozen good and tight. We then decided to remove the easiest ones they came out fairly easily, even one of the frozen ones I would hammer down on the con rod bolts with a brass drift. The last little bit I used the con rod cap as a guide for the drift. When we were down to the last three pistons, two of which were frozen, we could not access the little retaining tabs for the nuts. BUGGER! Then my brother suggested that we try and pry the crank over a bit. Well that was enough to gain clearance to bend the tabs and we they used a "bit of stick" to convince the two frozen pistons "begone serpent" and the last non frozen piston came out easily.

We spun the crank and t my delight none of the valves were stuck! I was hoping they weren't all this time.We then removed the crank and set it up on its end securely.

Most of the con rod bearings look pretty good as well as the main bearings. The crank may just polish up and the bores that had the frozen pistons may just need honing. I'll take everything into a old time and well respected engine rebuilder for this thoughts.

I'll measure the bore diameter to see if this engine was ever bored out, it may not have been. There is only a very slight ridge at the top of the bores and the previous owner said it was removed in the early fifties from the original car, an early fifties vehichle, to put in a newer v8. No visible cracks anywhere either!

And though your recent experiences were much more difficult than mine your videos helped a lot and gave me a little more courage. However, in solidarity with you the engine gods had one of the oil pan bolts break off. Plenty left to try vise grips but I leaning towards having my son tig a nut onto it to take if out with a wrench.