Get all the rest of the folks here to kick in comments.ANTON C MOODY wrote:Ron, it is a numbers matching vehicle. I will follow your advice. I’m sure I’ll have more questions but hopefully they’ll be of the positive sort and not the “oh shit what do I do now” type. It feels like being a guardian to a piece of mechanical artwork and I’m really hoping I don’t screw it up! Or, that something hasn’t been screwed up already!
And consider where something could cause real damage. Amazingly, a broken crank usually doesn't, unless you're turning over 6KRPM; it makes really ugly sounds and you WILL shut it down.
A broken oil pump (trying to get one more rebuild out of the drive tab) can, but if your idiot light is good, you should spot that before you have real damage.
Valve problems lead to piston damage which DOES lead to case damage. You can do a pretty good visual check on springs, retainers, push rods, and if you crank down the clearance (to minus numbers) and gently rotate the engine, you can make sure you have adequate clearance on the exhaust valves (don't waste time on the intakes, unless he put 13:1 pistons in the thing. If they were on the shelf at the time and didn't cost anything, well...).
Ditto problems with connecting rods, and there's not much real inspection possible without disassembly.
C'mon, guys, what else really screws the pooch and where do you look to keep it from happening?