I love restoring used engines and I've done a dozen or so over the last several months that I've picked up cheap at auction. I will vouch for the copper cream; it works like magic!

8178, one thing I do different - and this is just my preference - is to remove the crank before heating the case and bearings in the oven. I find it a lot easier to get rear bearings out of a case than trying to get them off of a crankshaft. The crank and the bearing's inner race are both steel and expand around the same amount, but the aluminum case will expand more than the bearing's outer race. So, they usually fall out after heating in the oven. This is more of an issue with older engines with lots of castor varnish inside.

Just to show you how well the copper cream and Dawn Power Dissolver work, I bought this engine for $23 off *bay. It was covered with black carbon and castor varnish. New ring, conrod, bearings, gaskets and O-ring and it's like a new engine (I did buy the muffler from Ken Enya new).

David