I'm pretty sure my block is fine (120k miles), and I rebuilt my heads completely with all brand new valves back in October. When I put in the new crank and rod bearings, I could still see the factory cross-hatching on the piston cylinder sleeves (I'll check again to verify). I'm just going to throw a crank in there and make sure the cylinder 5 connecting rod doesn't have any movement (since I don't know if it has worn down at all (will do this while it is on the engine stand). I'll have to go with other options if there is more movement, but thats for later discussion. I think my piston rings are fine, although I do burn a bit of oil, but I do now realize it is within 1 qt everything 1000 miles, so factory specs. Only actually burn about 1-2 quarts every 10k mile oil change.
Getting a sand blaster with some walnut shell media to sand blast the block and repaint, mine was looking pretty crusty the last time I looked at it.
I have pretty much every socket, allen key, poly drive, E-Torx, etc that I'd need (as far as I know), socketed allen(hex) keys as well, short and long sizes (like for the viscous fan pulley) I've mostly gone with Lexivon for most of my tools, as they're cheap on Amazon and come in a carrying case along with a lifetime warranty on the tools. I often take my tools with on road trips (so cases are a need for me) incase I encounter an issues, like last year I got stuck in Salem, MA with a broken CV axle, changed that right in front of the local O'Reillys there!
I don't want to take the heads off if I don't have to as the head gasket and everything has less than 400 miles on it at this point, but I'll do it if it ends up to be easier for me. Or if I decide I just want to do piston rings while I'm in there, I'll go ahead and do that. All up in the air at this point. I do appreciate that advice though.
As for the A/C compressor and components, I'll probably just disconnect the A/C Compressor and keep the a/c lines connected, but move everything off to the side (with whatever space allowed)
I have a 150psi air compressor that I'll use to try to blow out the oil passages with, hopefully getting any remaining debris out (if there is any). But I do believe my issue was that I was outside of the wear limit on the crank which caused the spun bearing again (speculation as I actually haven't dropped the oil pan yet, want to remove the engine from the car first).
As of now I'd just need to figure out how to get the whole engine and tranny out of the car, I also want to replace the transmission pan as I am pretty sure I have a slow leak (maybe a drop every hour or so), it has some bad scrapes on it. And as soon as the engine is running I want to do a transmission fluid change, I'm pretty familiar with this stuff now, just did a tranny fluid change on a 2012 Jetta 6sp auto (without input port) and a 2016 Chrysler T&C within the last year or so. Tranny works great in my car, I just feel like it could do better with new fluid, but I'll look at manual tranny prices and see if that would be worth it for me to do, I already get pretty good milage that I'm happy with.. 25mpg avg or if I'm really trying I can get upwards of 30mpg. I'd majorly consider if it was a 6 speed, I feel like my 5sp tip is really limiting me.
