[Verdoro 68]

6 of the cylinders are between 120 and 125. Cylinders 5 and 7 are at 80 and 90.

I’ve been rotating the engine by hand to put each cylinder I’m working on to the top of the bore. I’ve been using an inspection camera to make sure the piston is at the highest point. Then I use compressed air to keep the valves in place when I remove the hardware.

At first, I installed the seals on cylinder 1 before I put the retainer on. Then I learned you have to put the seals on the valve with the retainer on and spring compressed or else it pushes the seals down the valve. I took it apart again and sure enough, the seals were pushed down the valve. For as long as I’ve owned Pontiacs, I’ve never worked on a stock valvetrain so this is all new to me.

We haven’t driven it enough to measure oil loss, but it smokes pretty bad on initial start up. It lightens up when the engine is warm. This engine was so leaky and everything had caked on oil and grime so it’s still kind of burning off. The cloud around it is kind of like pig pen on the Peanuts.