Originally Posted by duxthe1

I've seen broken rings in these engines before. It happens something like this.... Grandma puts it around for years and years. The engine develops a bit or ridge at the top of the cylinder. Car gets passed on and being as they are slow molasas the next owner runs it quite a bit harder than Grandma did. Higher revs stretch the rods and slams the rings into the ridge worn into the block. Result is a hard starting engine that no amount of tinkering is ever going to fix.