The next day, I wheeled the engine outside and rinsed it all off, so I could begin taking it all apart.  Everything was going well until it was time to pull the distributor – with the engine being seized nothing would rotate, along with the retainer and cam gear not moving, so getting the dizzy out was a major PITA.  Ended up breaking the nylon timing gear and forcing the distributor out.  With the heads off, it was very easy to see why the engine was siezed – the #4 and #8 cylinders had rusted into place – #4 being the worse of the two.  After I flipped the engine over and removed the oil pan, I noticed that the previous owners had tried to out-do the Duke Boys… the oil pan had been smashed in from what I’m guessing was some ‘air time.’  It was so bad that the pick-up on the oil pump had been damaged as well – no wonder the engine had seized… with the oil pan smashed up against the oil pump pick-up, it starved for oil and that was that.  This poor car had been abused and basically thrown away and left to rot.  Once I pulled all the bearing caps off the connecting rods, I was able to slip out the rest of the pistons and conn-rods without hassle, along with the crank, which fortunately looked really good.  The #4 & #8 pistons had to be coaxed out with a half can of PB Blaster and a BFH, revealing some scarring on the cylinder walls.  Hopefully, the machine shop can still work with it, either by boring or sleeving the cylinders.

It’s a good thing I’m not planning on restoring this car to absolute stock conditions… this engine’s going to get some performance goodies put back in.