Shudder, cylinder 3 misfire, check engine light

A couple more

 

Intake manifold, nice and clean

 

I went ahead and ordered new head bolts. As much work as I have in this I consider head bolts and taking the head to the machine shop to be minor expenses.

 

While I’m in here I’m wondering if there is a good way to check cylinder wear. Without facing the problem of a bent rod when does one decide to rebuild the engine? I didn’t have the compression checked before I started tearing it down.

 

I’ll look when I get home

 

They are still there

 

Is there anything I can do to clean the rings? I’m guessing they really need replacing? At this point should I consider pulling the rest of the engine and getting rings? How much more work would be involved to pull the engine? I’m guessing not much more.
Before this it was using about a quart of oil every 10k miles, give or take.

 

To do this I would need to pull the short block and if I did that I would rebuild it.

 

Cylinders 1-4

 

Any kind of cleaner I could use so I could let the piston tops soak while this is happening

 

I poured Seafoam in and it didn’t seem to change level the first hour but I checked 5 hrs later and the 2nd cylinder from the left when looking at the engine from the front has slowly leaked down

 

What’s an acceptable difference on the pistons at the top? My 1 and 4 are the same. My 2 and 3 have a 1/16” difference. I’m trying to go back together with it today after being delayed by my job since Tuesday.

What will it do if I reassemble and run it with the #3 being a tad short? I’m almost certain it’s a slight bent rod but due to work I’m kind of in a bind and need to get back to driving soon

 

As you can see in the pic, piston 3 is short by 1/16”. Now the question is do I rebuild the short block, buy a new short block, or just try to reassemble and see how it performs? At this point I don’t want a used engine unless I could find one with extremely low mileage.