Spent some time with my son on tearing down the 230, had to drag him away from Band of Brothers to do it though.

Got all the studs but two out of the manifold mounting area, going to leave those two for the machine shop as I already broke off an easy out in each and managed to remove the broken parts, which if you've ever had to remove a broken easy out you know how fun that can be. So my son learned some valuable information with that, first don't break an easy out, second how much fun it can be removing the broken one.

Pulled all the external stuff off of the distributor side, except the oil fill and dipstick tubes. No real issues there.

Got the plugs out, some of them really did not want to come out, used Kroil on them but even so number three was a bear. All of them had gaps in excess of .045" some well in excess. Wonder how well it ran? Number six looked a bit rich but the rest looked ok colorwise. This kind of thing will tell you how well it ran aforehand.

Pulled the head off, most of the head bolts came out ok, one or two were a bit reluctant but came out. Solid copper head gasket on it, no copper coat or sealant that I could determine, head popped off with no issues whatsoever, one moderate whack with a plastic headed hammer and the head moved. No idea what brand that head gasket was, couldn't see any name on it. Not planning to reuse it so it doesn't matter, might turn it into wall art for the garage. Some of the coolant holes in the deck were a bit goobery. It was interesting to see where, in the chamber, the carbon build up was. Tells a bit about the thermodynamic characteristics.

Cylinder walls barely had a ridge, just enough to barely catch a finger nail. Might have just been carbon build up, haven't looked close at it yet. Might bust out the KaBar to see if I can scrape off the carbon or if it's a ridge. Both the KaBar and I have found other uses for ourselves these days, lol.

In the tappet picture above you can see some of the valves are stuck. I put some penetrating oil in through the ports three or four times since last weekend. Once we got the head off we squirted some more penetrating oil in thru the opening between the deck and the open valve. Then hosed down the valve stems as well. the objective being to loosen up the carbon and rust. I got all but two loose with nothing more than some penetrating oil and a plastic faced hammer. I will work on the other two some more tomorrow, they are soaking in penetrating oil right now.

More as it happens.