Excellent. I assume by your response you don't think I'm completely crazy! lol

Great advice. I will follow it to the letter, and roll the dice on using the old parts. This will be fun.

Oh, yes, the low compression was due to "visible" head gasket failure, and air being blown into neighboring piston during leak down test. Actually looked bad between #2 cyl and #1, and maybe even between #2 and #3. I'll see if I can find a pic.