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Thanks, Bob. That’s reassuring. Everything is new for me, but I love learning. I’ll give it a shot.

I did get some good clean up done. I got a lot of the undercoating stripped off the frame and ready for some rust encapsulator.










I also discovered another reason the car as a lean to the passenger side. The springs definitely are the main reason but another is with the body mounts.

Here is the driver side.




And here is the passenger side.

Here is a bit showing BobJ's description on distribution tube removal. This was taken from a later manual. Note that if the tube has been in place a long time there is every chance sediment could cause the tube to stick in place. If you pull too hard the small hole will tear out. If you find the tube does not want to budge try to find something long and thin similar to a hacksaw blade only longer to work around the tube on all sides and as far back as possible to try and free the tube before pulling again.

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Thanks, Howard.

You can take a piece of stiff, thin wire (like welding wire) and run down all the outsides of the distribution tube to help loosen it up. The the is fairly thin brass, so don't be too heavy handed with it. If you ever look through my 54 blog, you can see me extracting mine from my 327 block, which isn't too different.

The last couple inches of my tube was clogged with sediment.

I got the water distribution tube out without much fuss. Gently running a hack saw blade around the edges was enough to free it up. But, it’s in bad shape, so I reached out to Flackmaster for a replacement.

There was a lot of crude caked into the back end. Several inches of the tube were pretty well blocked.

I would like any advise from here regarding anything else that may need to be done before reassembling. What is the process to flush out the block? I assume I need to do that. My guess is that 99% of the crud remained in the distribution tube, but that’s just a guess.

I think your best bet is to remove and disassemble the engine down to the bare block and have it boiled out, then replace the guides and at the very least check and hone the cylinders, replacing the rings with new. If too worn, they’ll need to be bored and get new pistons too. Lap or, better, grind all the valves and seats. For the bearings, get some Plasti-gauge and check the clearance, replacing as needed. Best to grind the crank and recondition the rods.

The end of that distro tube ends up collecting a alot crud that floats around in the coolant. I'd back flush the motor at a minimum and see how much crud you can flush out.

I'd probably do it a couple of times.

If the motor isn't overheating or doesn't have other issues then no point in stripping it down. But if you getting low compression values, then it may need a looking it.

Thanks guys…

I do have concerns on the compression as I posted yesterday. Rebuilding the engine is WAY out of my experience/knowledge level.

Anyone know of or have recommendations for a good shop in the Kansas City area?

No need to know how to do it, that is what rebuilders are for. I do not even pretend to know the answer to rebuilders in your area, but I can recommend going to your nearest airplane club, usually at small airports and asking who does their engine work. Most of the antique aircraft need to have engine work done to recertify and their mechanics are top notch and used to dealing with these old style engines. Just a thought, it is what I did.
Bob J.