Picked up the full gasket set from NAPA after work on Sat. It's a Fel Pro set and the few gaskets I checked for fitment seemed to line up perfectly, including the head gasket. Theres quite a few gaskets in the set.
Pressure washed the water pump, thermostat housing, manifolds, side cover, valve cover and fuel pump and after getting decades of gunk & debris off they all cleaned up pretty good.
Took the fuel pump apart and was able to clean and free up the check valves and the diaphram actually still looked intact with no cracks/rips. So I cleaned it up real good and bolted it back onto the engine. I won't need it to start as I'm going to use an electric fuel pump and stand alone gas can as my fuel source but it'll be a nice surprise if it did still wotk. Right now it's main job is to cover the hole in the block
I blew high pressure air back through the fuel line to the tank and got some kind of nasty smelling fluid to come out. Almost smelled like varnish. Must be what gas turns into after a decade or two or three
I'm going to pull the tank and either clean it out myself or let a pro do it, but at this point it's not necessary to try to get it started.
Most of the oil has seeped down past the pistons and when I easily rotate the engine by hand theres a nice thin coating of oil on the cylinder walls. It doesn't appear any of the rings are stuck/froze but the proof will be known soon....
I talked to the former owners son a couple weekends ago and he said that he thought his Dad had new rings installed as well as the bottom end checked at some point before he parked it. Thats the main reason why I'm not tearing it down further.
Got a short beach vacation coming up but I'll also have a few days I should be able to dedicate to this truck.
I couldn't help but take some cleaner to the dash, gauges and whole interior and the results just motivated me more. Even got the pop-up ventilation intake working. Looked like someone had used gasket sealer to seal it down or there was an orange gasket to help it seal when closed......
Dave
