Im sorry if answers to this are in earlier chats and please don't hesitate to redirect me. Ive acquired 2 cars and would guess both have engines with faults. Id like to know about any good engine builder or any experiences of engine wear to guide me. Im a skilled 60 year old engineer who has rebuilt 4 cyl units so you can reply in tech terms. The 2.6 160k, I guess has a broken piston ring.. .no rattles , no oil burn and reasonable power but coughs a bit on tick over. Electrics are all checked and good. Any views? ... . The 2.8 unit I know is not so robust. This one 140kmiles unit, ticks over quite nice, no rattles, good oil pressure , but plugs look bit oil stained. Emissions are poor and im guessing the oil control rings are worn out. Any views?

As always, im happy to consider anything from heads off to buying a recon unit which some German companies seem to be advertising.

Best regards

A compression test should help reveal a broken ring on the 2.6.

Oily plugs on the 2.8 might be a broken oil ring; it might also be worn valve stem seals.

Either way it's likely the heads will need to come off as a first step.

Thanks for the reply. Stem seals have been changed on the 2.8 already , so im guessing it's more . I'dguess at some time it's burst a water pipe and run dry. On that basis the heads should be warped, but they're not leaking so may be just unequally shot rings ??