Sat Jun 09, 2018 1:08 pm by cornbinder89
Ok, unless you found coolant in the cyl, rust could be from sitting with valves open.
By all mean, since you are in this far, at least check the head and block for flatness, skim cut if there is a problem. Unless you are planning on milling 1/4" off the head or block, it will be fine, it is a low compression engine by todays stds, and as long as you don't get crazy there should be no interference problems, but if you are concerned, put a little playdough on the pistons under each valve, put the head on with the old gasket and run it thru 2 revolutions and pull the head back off and measure the "squash" of the dough.
Unless you have a reason to mess with the oil pump (previous low pressure not explained by bearing clearance problems) I would leave the pump alone, it is the 1st thing to get lubed when the engine starts and the last to see lube when it shuts down, and it sits submerged in oil. I've done a whole lot of engines and rarely had a pump need attention.
If the pistons are out, remove any ridge in the top of the bore so you don't break a ring land with new rings installed, and run a hone thru the bores to get a good cross-hatch.
If there is a big ridge at the top of the bore, you need to decide if you want to re-bore or not.
Years ago, I had a Dodge 225 with over 300,000 miles that was useing a qt every 25 miles or so, As an experiment, I pulled the head, and took the ridge off, popped the pistons out and re rung with J.C. Whitney's cheapest rings, gaskets and bearings. I had less than $75 in the whole deal and oil consumption dropped to a qt in 1500 miles. The bore look more like a funnel (tapered bad) and the ring grooves on the pistons were very worn, never the less the outcome was better than I could have ever thought it could be.
Moral of the story, you don't have to make it perfect, you can fix whats wrong and get more life out of it, or you can do a complete overhaul and know you will not need to go in again, either way you make your choice and accept the outcome.