The junkyard L28 I bought for $400 (this is not California) had been sitting in a warehouse for 8 years (according to the yard owner and I believe him). The thing ran well, but slowly deteriorated as the valve seals were completely dried out. In the end, cylinders 4&5 were just full of oil.

So, I swallowed hard and pulled the head. Putting it back on involved breaking the too tightly jammed in block of wood. So, I got a chance to pull the timing cover! That meant removing the radiator and the condenser, the oil pump, the distributor - pretty much everything. I should have just gone the extra step, pulled the pan and replaced the bearings and rings. Gotta draw the line someplace.....

Pretty dingy and dirty. I cleaned this side of the block and painted it. I also sand blasted the header and coated it with an old can of ceramic black (over a year old, hope it holds up). I sand blasted the Timing cover - the grime would not come off any other way. It was so hot here in NC that the binding on my Tom Monroe Nissan OHC book melted away. Now it's a collection of pages in a binder.

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