The downside of the barge...

That's really clean inside for an engine that old, usually covered with sludge, may have had a valve job in it's life already or it was really taken care of . If cylinder 6 and 7 are next to each other?, it may be a blown head gasket but check the valves first as said. Pulling the heads and doing valve jobs is no big deal, in high school auto shop we were doing them on teacher's cars nearly every week, cheapskates never even tipped us.

 

I will just add one thing to this. As you work your way down into the engine, be sure to keep all the component parts together. This includes rockers, pushrods, and lifters. Each has worn in as a unit and should not be mixed during reinstallation. It is especially important that the lifters go back into the same bore they were taken from. Nuff said.

 

Hopefully, he won't need to go down that far; but as he does each step, I'll walk him through it and give suggestions to make things go easier for him.