Thought I'd share some progress. Been busy the last few weeks so this stalled a tad but got a bunch of stuff done today. Block was standard bore, worn about .003-.004 at the top (152k miles!). Got it bored and honed out .020 over. All of the core plugs were rotted and once removed, revealed tons of block sealer. Had to scrape out the crud with a long screwdriver through the head surface water jacket holes and flush, flush, flush with water.

The heads are a mess. One head was cracked and welded, the other is cracked and needs to be welded. Whoever touched these heads before apparently never bothered to check spring pressure/installed height as the valves were obviously bouncing off the seats. Valve guides are fine and none have dropped (though I thought the 91's had the clips to keep them from falling). It's a wonder this thing ran at all.

Frank, I know you gave me the spec for head decking, but where do you measure from? The valve cover surface to the head surface? I want to measure these before I go through the trouble of welding the one and putting new valve seats in. I'm almost tempted to go to the yard and pull a set off a 3.0 equipped Caravan, rebuild them and use the Montero's cams and cam gears.

Hoping to start assembly next weekend (at least the bottom end).