Here's a quick data dump on the engine: it came from the junkyard (pic attached of it the way that I found it). The engine was sitting in a 1961 Chevy Impala. The serial number supports that model year of car. It is a car engine with hydraulic lifters. I do not know if the engine was the original engine for that car or if it was a replacement. There was no rebuild tag attached to it, nor did I notice any remnants of a tag. I have not been inside the engine in any way, so I really have no idea if it has been rebuilt, hacked or modified in any way. It's a mystery, unfortunately.
I will start with a compression test of each cylinder. While I do that, I'll take a pic of each plug. My thought is that if the compression numbers seem roughly equal (they did the original time that I did the test a couple of years ago), then I'm thinking it is valve guide or seal related, instead of ring related. Is that a valid way to think?
After that, I'll regroup and go from there. I'll plan to continue to drive it in the neighborhood, unless something shows up in the compression test. In a less emotional way than my last post, let me say that I have no problem doing (learning) engine work. My issue is strictly financial. I just don't have the money to do any machine shop work. If it turns out that there is some work that I could do, without the need to send it off to a machine shop, then I'd be amenable to that. As it stands right now, I have no confidence that the engine won't strand me on the side of the road.... It really stinks that I've come this far and still can't drive it out in town.
