So far, so good. After a morning of obligatory yard work, I pulled the heads off the '66 engine and they look surprisingly good. Very little sludge anywhere, only normal carbon buildup in the combustion chambers, and no burned valves. I have no idea how many miles showed on the odometer, but everything about the engine appears to be original. Steel head gasket, uniform paint under layers of oily dirt, no tooling marks on any bolts. The only bad parts I've found to this point were some slightly bent pushrods. Junior must have been racing dad's 4-door grocery getter.
Cylinder wall ridges were not excessive, and were actually less pronounced than I've seen in much newer engines. No obvious damage to anything visible from the top side, but I still have to pull the pan, so my fingers are still crossed.
I do have a problem with crankshaft accessory pulleys. The OEM three-groove pulley is the first I've seen on a Mopar, but then it's the first A-engine I've torn down from an A/C equipped car. The problem is that the pulleys are joined by a rubber damper, and the rubber looks to be in bad shape. I can probably get it rebuilt, but that decision is for another day. Every other A/C engine I've torn down had a combination of cast and stamped pulleys, so I might be able to find that setup if needed.
I was reminded of one thing I dislike about A-engines, and that is tearing down the rocker shafts. One side has varnish buildup under two rockers that doesn't want to dissolve with any solvent, so the shaft won't slide out. I'm not sure how long the engine has been sitting, but what was once lubricant turns to glue after a few years. Some of the head bolts were also glued in place so securely that my half-inch impact wrench wouldn't break them free. It took a long bar and lots of curse words to pop them loose. Maybe I'm just getting too old to handle some of these tasks!
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