Maybe I have figured out the picture bit a little better now.
Ben and I finished tearing down the engine from the Yellow Peril yesterday
and found some interesting things. It occurred to us that when we took the
engine out, there was NO aircleaner in the canister(??) which may have something
to do with this sad case since the car came from the Sonora Desert of Arizona.
Here is a pic of the side of piston #2:

And here is a pic of the side of piston #3:

ALL of the top rings were broken. #1 and #4 were broken in two and not in
such bad shape. #2 and #3 were broken in several pieces, some of which were
missing. I should make it clear that neither Andy nor I were long-term drivers
of this car, although he drove it further than I did. I drove it here (to NE
Oklahoma) from Augusta, Georgia immediately after I retired, the majority of
our trip home from Panama via Charleston, SC, where we had shipped our 122
wagon. It used something over 4 ½ gallons of oil on that trip, and after
arriving here I may have driven it as much as 400 miles. By the time I got the
car, the damage had been done, and probably even before Andy got the car (in
Phoenix, for (I think) about $450, in 1994 or so. Up to this job the only
work I had done on it was to replace the water pump in the winter of 1997,
trying to make it ready to drive home the following summer.
It'll sure be a lot better when we get done!
--
George Downs, Bartlesville, Oklahoma, Central US