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Leakdown on a never fired rebuild - need some coaching please
Good morning. Have a '78 ROW large port 3.0L engine I am looking at that was supposedly professionally rebuild 10+ years ago then stored since. Asking price on the engine is attractive, seller is a good guy but engine condition is all word of mouth since it has changed hands a couple times. It has been stored inside in with the plugs in and fuel injection system installed.
The seller offered to do a leakdown prior to my purchasing it this weekend. He said the engine rotates freely but is stiff with plugs in. When the leakdown test was started the PSI never got to 90 and there was 50%+ leakdown via the crankcase. Apparently you could clearly hear it hissing.
I would expect an engine that hasn't been fired and run-in to not have the rings sealed yet. I am hoping to get some coaching on this leakdown behavior and how concerned I should be about the ability to service it and then carefully fire it up and use it?
Any thoughts or experiences to share here? I don't want an attractive price to lure me into an engine that needs to be re-rebuild, at the same time I don't want to be unfair to seller and let a lack of knowledge have me miss out on a good engine.
Thank you in advance for any responses.
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