I just acquired a 78 SC with 35,000 miles on it and no rust for a good price and was feeling pretty good about it. It was a barn find, but it started up and seem to run ok. I only drove it about 10 miles and decided to go through it with a valve adjust, new plugs, oil change, trans oil change, check ignition timing, new distributor cap and rotor.
Today, pulled the valve covers to do the valve adjustment and these fell out of the lower covers. Nice pre-Father's Day gift. Nevertheless, I have 90% decided to do as much of a top end job myself (never done one before) as I can and put in a set of steel studs. While I am in there, I can clean things up, fix the 4 pulled valve cover studs and put in new Carerra chain tensioners.
Here is my question, with 35,000 miles on the engine, does the fact there are 8 broken head studs in and of itself indicate that other serious problems exist that I should be prepared for before I dig in?
Brad
