This was never going to be easy... you will remember my best attempts to soak the pistons to free them from being rusted into the cylinder bores, resulting in negligible progress so the thought is now to remove the crankshaft which all of the pistons are connected to which will mean each piston can be dealt with separately.
The clutch removal was simple enough and the flywheel is in half decent condition although it looks pretty shabby in the photograph - but what did surprise me is that the gearbox was mated to the engine block using an adapter-spacer plate and was not bolted directly to the engine like 'normal'. In theory this means that if I remade the adapter plate I could in theory fit any gearbox I like... something to possibly consider in the future if the gearbox turns out to be beyond repair.
Back to the engine strip down - first step was to remove the cylinder head. That was easy enough as I had removed it a few weeks back, but it did nudge my memory of the burnt valve in cylinder 5 (all of the valves will be replaced anyway). Next I need to turn the engine upside down and I had drained the oil from the sump pan previously so all I needed to do was manhandle it so that it say on the engine studs so that the sump could be removed. What I had not accounted for was that it turns out there are numerous places in an engine where oil pools and wasn't able to be drained - so you can guess what happened when the engine was inverted... yep a big pool of oil quickly formed on the garage floor.
The mess aside I could now remove the sump to gain sight of the crankshaft and pistons etc. Removal was easy but I made note that there more than a few bolts missing that will need to be replaced during the engine build.
What you cant see easily in the picture above is that the main bearings are locked in place with steel wire that does not look professionally fitted - so I am wondering if the engine has been apart before? Work has now started on removing the split pins, nuts and bolts from the conrods connected to the pistons. This is time consuming and rather frustrating due to the confined spaces but fingers crossed, there will not be much trauma in the exercise, just a bunch of frustrating days ahead...