I'm afraid things just took an unexpected and unwelcome twist on the project. I finally got the pistons out, and the top ring land on number five piston is pretty badly busted up. Of course, I have no way of knowing what might have caused it, up to this point things have looked fairly good. The other pistons look ok, and actually the crown of the number five piston looks just fine as well. Sucks that this happened, but I am glad I didn't just put new seals in and drop it in the other car. Now I really wish I'd had a compression tester, I'm sure it would have shown way lower than the others as bad as it, and no way was it worth what was paid for it given this. Live and learn I guess, ya pays your money, ya takes yer chances.

Anyway, I'm going to be taking it down to the machine shop next week, and I'll see what they say, but are there any opinions as to what I'm looking at here? How often is a serious ring land failure an isolated thing? I'm hoping I can just replace the one piston, is that likely to work out if the other pistons check out ok? Does it affect the balance? I don't know if it's important, but one piston has 90.85 and the others (including the busted one) have 90.86 stamped on the crown.

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Once and future king:
'64 Ford Fairlane w/approx 238,000 - looks rough, but amazingly reliable if you know how to look after it; I will soon begin work to totally restore and modernize it.
Family vehicles that I lay some claim to:
'78 300D w/approx 350,000 original, '62 Ford F100 4x4, '90 Ford E150 w/171,000 original