unexpected motor rebuild.

You can try driving in safety (single edge) razors between the seam line or use a chistle. Sharpen a putty knife and have at it.

Hope this helps.

I was able to hammer the pan off from above, had to work at it.

Had to find just the right angle where I could get piece of wood at the right place.

Pictures of the oil pan and block

Pictures of everything together

Ok guys, I finally got the oil pan off. That was a hell of a task. I ended up destroying it in the process, I had to wedge a pry bay between the pan and block then use a jack with the pry bar resting against the frame to get it to budge! But now that that out, I got the pistons out and marked and put the new rings on them. The new head came in so I need to put the old cam gear on it. I got some plugs for the stupid exhaust riser, I plan on just using a piece of the bracket to plug off the ports coming off the exhaust pipe. I am currently waiting on a cylinder hone and a new oil pan to start putting it all back together. In the mean time I will be working on cleaning it all up!

final product

final product

this project was pretty easy over all. I still need to mess with the timing and adjust the carb a bit. It wants to die when I give it gas from a dead stop, and doesn't have the power I was hoping for, just seems a bit off, but it runs and drives down the road. I have 120 psi compression in all cylinders. It is starting rough from a cold start, I'm guessing that is an electric choke adjustment. It wants to overheat when idling since I tossed the old busted up shroud in the trash and It needs a new fan clutch. With a little time and patience it should be running like new!
Over all I replaced:
Pistons
piston rings
oil pan(I destroyed the old one trying to get it off)
head(bought a remanufactured one for $300)
intake manifold(it somehow cracked when I reinstalled it, $190)
all gaskets
main bearings
carburetor
spark plugs
plug wires
installed holly pressure regulator and gauge
blinker assembly
deleted all emissions junk (my fav part was getting rid of those stupid exhaust risers, I just used a part of its own mounting bracket to block it off at the exhaust and found some pugs for the exhaust manifold)

still need
fan clutch
fan shroud
steering column cover
raise it back up to a not stupid height
rear bumper
paint tailgate
tailgate handle
front grill
front bumper
fix the corner lights
ashtray
(so if you have any of these that you would like to get rid of let me know)

Out of curiosity, how many miles were on it before the rebuild? Also did you hone the cylinder walls or did the crosshatching still look good? Reason I ask is that your compression is low, could be a timing issue or throwing new rings on without the cylinder wall being prepped could cause that. I rebuilt mine last November and my compression was 135 psi across all 4 with almost 200k on that engine.