[masraum]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I know an El Camino that engine could have gone in a few years ago...

I only saw the first 20 minutes. What did the black specks on the cylinder walls turn out to be? He got it running well?

Just "stuff", possibly that had come in through open valves. In the video it looked like pitting to me, but then once he got the motor freed up, the action of the pistons moving up and down seemed to "wipe" all of the stuff off of the cylinder walls.

He let acetone and ATF soak in the cylinders for several days. He pulled the pressure plate and got the motor freed up (prybar on the ring teeth).
He drained the oil, water, and acetone and ATF, and pulled the oil pan. He cleaned out the oil pan, made a new gasket and put it back.
He got the sparkplugs (had to order from England). He made an adapter (out of a cast iron plumbing 90º elbow) to put a downdraft carb on the sidedraft intake manifold. He figured out the wiring for the starter and had to free up the mechanism by greasing and exercising it.

Once he had all of that done, he fired it up, and it started faster than expected (fired right up!). He let it run for a few seconds, and then rigged up some "coolant" (used several zip ties for a "fan belt" for the water pump. It started right up again, and he ran it until the thermostat opened. It ran and idled really well. It was quite amazing.