Thank you sir! The truck came to me as a basket case - many of these budget working vehicles were destroyed by the original owners (typically contractors) within 10 years - this one was left for dead in the woods in the early 80's and was remarkably intact when found.

Yes - this engine was built and filled with 10-W30 for storage and now runs on it. I have blanking plates for the exhaust ports (the only real special hardware) - Mrs Breakdown would not tolerate slight oil seepage. All other holes were blocked with the stock accessories, all valves are stainless and it was stored with the rocker shafts off (all valves closed / no pressure on the springs and cam / followers). I only intended to store the motor for a few months and then things changed! I also knew that once fired up the combustion products would present corrosives and accelerators that would only take inside of 6 months to wreak havoc in storage - so I resisted the urge to run it until the truck was ready to be road worthy.

I was an Apprentice at Rover and was schooled to always prep parts and "wet build" everything with the operating fluid you were going to use throughout the device's working life. Good quality gaskets - mostly paper for the VW and they all go on wetted with oil onto clean / dry / 32Ra max mating surfaces (there’s that prep thing). The race shops and DIY aftermarket have developed several compounds for build and storage which I have not used (they get dissolved into your fluids - or react with them - or get sucked into the filters) - their only advantage seems to be increased build speed and resultant "glued together" reliability to replace the prep. Despite this strict regime of operating fluid only, wet build and prep I have never had a flat cam, or unequal compression, major leaks or an engine that would not start first time.

If you are interested I can look to post some before shots of the truck - quite a transformation and a journey I will not repeat!

Cheers!