Progress has been made. Complete teardown is now done. Found something less than good when poking the pistons out. They're all pretty badly scuffed, and pot 3 had a broken ring as well. I'd hoped I might get away with just one new piston, but that's doubtful now - they're all scuffed about the same amount.
Here's bore 1 with ring strike damage. Probably no trouble to relieve it, right?
Top bearing journal:
One and two:
Three and four:
But. All was not right when the crank was pulled. Seems the last person inside didn't align the pin with the bearing hole.
Center bearing journal is nicely shot-peened. All the conrod needles look good. Haven't pulled the wrist pins but there's no blueing on them either.
I checked and the crank is supposed to be the same for both motors, so probably the one from the 90 (which has never been apart until today) will be used in the rebuild.
Now, an odd question: I picked up a standard automotive harmonic balancer puller and used the supplied bolts and had no trouble getting the flywheel off the 140 ('79 vintage). The same bolts don't work on the 90 ('82 vintage). The bolt goes about a half a turn in then binds. Did they change sizes?
This is a pic of the lower compression head from the mid 80's through mid-90's for all crossflows. Be glad you have the heads you do. They are hard to come by. I run similar high compression heads in all my crossflows and always run 92 octane (ethyl) type gas. You should also, unless you retard the timing-resulting in less hp. The 79 did not make use of the intake manifold recirculation system. (with all the hoses.) Came out around 83. They are OK, but require that the one-way valves always work, and that the hoses don't deteriorate. I've run many without that recirc system and they run fine without it. One other point, you can tell you have a 79 140 block, because of the machined rib that's cutout just above the bottom of the exhaust chest. (outgoing exhaust chambers.) Cut back at about 1 1/4". That first appeared on the 79 140's.
