Boat was bought with the engine in this state. Its a Bristol 27, 1976. The previous own told us he has no clue what happened with the engine so he just stuck with using the outboard. He said he never liked inboard diesels due to the fact that "they always break and smell up the boat".
For the reason of the inboard not running, we agreed on the purchase price of $3k. It's outboard is fully functional, it had 2 sets of mains, 2 sets of jibs a brand new spinnaker and a storm jib in decent condition. The chainplates are being replaced, the standing rigging will be replaced in middle of summer or winter depending on finances.
As for the inboard, i called the owner(owner 2) who originally installed the engine. He installed it brand new back in 1993, sold the boat in 2003 for $13k. The engine ran perfect still when he sold it. The owner(owner 3) that bought it had called owner 2 and told him she was selling the boat because the engine had seized due to a loss of oil while being ran. She sold the boat for pennies on the dollar due to the engine problem. The guy who bought(owner 4) it from owner 3, apparently 'fixed' the seized engine as owner 2 saw in his port getting fuel in 2009. Owner 2 went to the boat and talked with owner 4, owner 4 said that he just had to add oil to the engine and replace the filters and it fired right up. There was no signs of oil leaks or any problems.
That was the last owner 2 had heard about the boat or saw it.
The owner that we bought it from(owner 5) said he has no clue what happened and never really cared due to the preferred use of the outboard.
All that said, atleast i have some background on the engine. Not enough to exactly know what happened to it. I've never see something like that inside the cylinder before. I do have a feeling that the engine was flooded via exhaust, however thats just a hunch, not anything else. The reason i have that feeling is due to the exhaust elbow is incredibly rusted, however its rusted on the outside. This could also be due to the fact that we intake seawater, and pump out through exhaust.
I have no experience with diesels, in fact this is the first engine that i've pulled the head from. If i appear to have the experience, then maybe thats a good thing, or could be bad. Its a learning process for me by all accounts. I'm a determined soul, not just to fix this engine, but to gain more knowledge. In the industry that I work in(software), learning is a constant process and is something i do on a daily basis. Being a self taught programmer, I do feel that being able to figure out and understand and fix this diesel engine is just something i am bound to do.