Good advice. I'm going to need to school the hell out of myself on putting that distributor back in correctly. I pulled the distributor twice on a '67 V-4 Saab years ago, not sure how I landed on my feet.

I just spoke with my former shop neighbor, the best welder I've ever met and a good mechanic, he repeated something I've heard before, not sure how true it is. He claims that rebuilt heads on top of an old block might not last long - too much compression for aging rings. I've read of this referred to as an 'old wives tale.' No idea, but I know this engine has pretty good power and oil consumption is not high. If I had more time I guess a long block 5.0 would be the way to go. Might be around $2K total, I might get away with $800 WAG on the current job.

At present acceleration is good but at around 55 mph it gets anemic and there's an odd noise I can barey hear. My thought was compression loss at higher RPMs.

I use about one gallon a month of the pre-mixed anti-freeze (it's getting harder and harder to find distilled water when you want it) - at Home Despot or Walmart those are around $10. My cynical mercenary side says drive it till it drops and then put in the long block.

My other optimistic side says with new heads, gasket, and the other miscellany, incl. water pump I might get another 80K reliable miles.

__________________
1986 300SDL, 362K
1984 300D, 138K