The GTE I’m working on needed to have the engine pulled. Although I’m putting the car back together, I needed to see what kind of condition the engine was in. It hasn’t been run in years, and now was a good time to take a closer look.

When this car was shipped to my warehouse, the engine was hastily put back in the car for shipping, so it didn’t take long for me to have it out of the car and loaded onto my truck headed for Francois’ shop.

The plan was to put a starter on it, and do a compression check to get a rough idea on the health of the engine. I wasn’t too confident that this engine was in great shape, but I’m always hopeful!

My confidence on the condition of the engine was not elevated by signs of “band aid” fixes like gobs of silicone to stop a leaky o-ring seal.  Once the starter was rigged up, I found a whole side of an engine with zero compression!? Something was wrong, so I popped off a valve cover to take a closer look.

The lack of compression was explained from all the missing rocker stud nuts. No rocker nuts, no rocker actuation from the camshaft, no compression. Hmmmm. What else has been pilfered from this engine?…