More updates: The machine shop finished the job on the head. The machinist that did the work was again interested in my car, as was who seemed to be the owner or manager of the shop (to whom I plugged EM a couple times). They were delighted by the few projects I mentioned to them relating to ecomodding, and they wanted me to stop in whenever I'm around (the racing guys want some efficiency pals for when the gas prices go up permanently I guess). I forgot to take a photo of the lovely head, but I assure you it's nice. @Johnny: I already bought valves (and everything else but the gaskets from JIS) from partsdinosaur. The valves I took out were actually in pretty dern good shape, and the guides were so good the machinist advised against replacing them. I'm really considering not replacing the rings at all since I did mech's trick of putting the rings in each cylinder and seeing how much play they have (really not much at all to speak of). Any thoughts on this Mullet Man?
Here is the top of the block that I used one of those green scotch pads to clean off. I got all of the previous gasket material off and am pretty much ready to put the head back on except for....
...this. From the top picture, this is the hole to the bottom right. This is an oil .... tube for lack of better word. Is it a pressure tube or a return? The machinist said it would be alright if I used some kind of gasket gunk stuff to put on before putting the head gasket on. My dad chose a bad spot to lodge a screwdriver to whack the head off
The pistons were surprisingly easy to clean off with the scotch pad. I don't think I need to get too thorough here with carbon removal - it wasn't on thick at all to begin with. Engine was generally in pretty good shape for 130k.
The throttle/carb body: anything special I should do to clean things up in here? I reached up in there with the scotch pad, cleaned off the plate as best I could. I don't know how thorough is advisable here, so please advise
Also forgot the picture of the nice clean tranny I spent an hour huffing petroleum distillates to clean up. I should also include a photo of the transmission HAR. ahem. That's all for now.
Edit: @Darin: Sorry I didn't notice your post with requests. I'll get on that before I throw it back together.