Short background story. A lady gave me a 1956 Chevy 3100 pickup if I would haul it off. It has seen its share of rain, hail, and heat sitting in a backyard for at least 40 years. I've tackled breaking the truck down completely, frame off restoration, just trying to remove as much surface rust as I can. I did get the 235 engine to run and it sounds good, though it only ran for about 2 minutes. Now that I have it out and looking at it I wonder about spending time trying to restore this engine. There's a lot of water jacket corrosion to contend with. Check the attached pix of the thermostat housing after sitting in CLR solution and the general appearance of the engine. I've flirted with doing an engine swap now that everything is off, but my son and b-i-l both want me to clean up the engine and put it back in original
I really worry about the leak at what I think is a cam cap at the back of the engine, as well as the water jacket corrosion. My question is what is your opinion of proceeding with this engine versus doing a swap now?
