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But the cam's ok!!:

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So, after seeing the damage up top with the cracked cylinder, and the broken #8 rod, I have come to this conclusion: The dent in the pan possibly happened while the car was driving, and broke off the oil pickup tube from the pickup, this starved the engine for oil, and since #8 rod broke, it siezed on the crank, and broke the rod. Now, how does that crack the cylinder? My guess is that the cylinder got cracked like that when all this happened, by pushing the piston pin into the cylinder wall when the rod went sideways trying to find someplace to go. The outside of the block and the cam are fine, however. I got lucky there!

Only a theory, but I think it's a good one. Incidentially, this is actually good news to me in a way, as I planned on using 288 rods anyway, and I won't be needing the 327 rods at all.

Eric,

Good to see that most of the bottom end is in a lot better shape even with what's happened. And your hypothesis on what could have happened to cause the damage seems very plausible.

Preliminary sizing up of the oil pan in the chassis tonight led me to one conclusion: I will HAVE to use the early pre-'50 engine mounts, as the side engine mount on the driver's side will interfere with the steering box. Now, I could just modify the whole steering, or just simply find the mount and timing cover plate from an eariler engine. Seems like a simple choice, as I feel I have enough stuff to worry about than trying to change out the whole steering! (I'm a natural for understatements!) See pics, and the oil pan is sitting pretty much exactly where it will be when the engine's in place:

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Also, you will notice that the front shocks appear to be "leaking", that's because I removed the plugs and filled them with PB Blaster to get things loosened up a bit. I didn't want to take the chance of anything binding and breaking when I set the engine in there for the first time.

Wow, Eric! That engine was definitely from the Titanic. I guess now you can (have to!) build that engine to be whatever you like. Your project is pretty interesting! It should be fun to drive.

Yeah, the wife thinks we get looks while driving the '56 Patrician, she doesn't know what she's in for!

And yes, since the engine's that far gone, it'll be fun bringing it back to life if it's possible.

I got up early this morning to get some work done before the heat got up to it's predicted high of 103. First thing to do was remove the trans mounts:

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You'll notice the clutch and brake pedal are already off, those were pretty easy actually. The next thing to do was to remove the original master cylinder mount because it interfered with the steering column. I have the stock steering column much lower than it was originally:

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Next, I attached the bellhousing and trans to the 327, in preparation of "installation"(test fitting and visualization):

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