Pull bypass covers and have a look at pistons and rings.----Powerhead has already been replaced as original was not white.----Just 6 wee bolts for each of the 4 covers,.---Might need new $4.00 gaskets.----As you know these motors are famous for broken piston rings.----If it has broken rings then it is time for rebuild NOW !!
Thank you for the reply. Sorry for the delay. I'm only able to work on the motor over the weekends.
So, I ordered new head gaskets and bypass cover gaskets. Still waiting on the bypass cover gaskets but the head gaskets came in so I went ahead and put those on. Once the bypass cover gaskets come in I will pull those off in order to get a better look at the rings. When I pulled the heads off the cylinders looked good but there was quite a bit of play in between the piston and the walls on the 3 cylinders that had lower compression (100, 105,105). The cylinder that had 110 compression was a noticeably tighter fit around the piston. But, like I mentioned the cylinder walls and the top of the pistons looked great. When I took the heads off I noticed that the last person who did this put some sort of adhesive on the head gasket. So I cleaned the heads and resurfaced them perfectly flat with some 220 wet/dry sandpaper and a whole lot of effort. Everything was tightened down to spec (19 lbs). I also lightly cleaned the piston heads with some WD40 and carb cleaner which didn't really have any excessive carbon build up.
Once I got everything back together the motor ran much better and drastically quieter! I had to increase the idle just a bit in order to keep it from shutting off. I didn't improve the compression which I figured wouldn't happen once I saw all of the play in the pistons. Compression is definitely lost around the pistons rings. My guess is the motor is just showing its age. But, the drastic improvement in vibration and noise was shocking! I really didn't expect that.
Another thing I noticed that was different from before I changed the head gaskets was a fairly decent amount of water started coming out of the holes pointed at by the red arrow. (picture attached) It was coming out of both of those holes but only one at a time which was kind of odd. The service manual doesn't really do a good job of explaining what that hole goes to. Any thoughts on if this is a good or bad thing? I'm guessing thermostat but not sure.
I also have a water leak coming from the green arrow on picture attached. This leak was there prior to doing the head gaskets. I haven't taken the lower off yet but since we are on the topic of water coming out of odd places I figured I'd throw this in as well.
