I've got a 1973 Regency 98 for y'all. It's obviously been stored away and treated very well for most of its life. Less than 100k miles. Everything original, including the 455 rocket. Exterior, amazing. Interior, even better. So... I bought it a while back and started cruising around as a young kid with a big new shiny car would. She rode like a cloud.




Not too far in I noticed oil was leaking abundantly from the head gaskets, running down the sides of the block. She ran amazingly, but ik I had to park it and get a plan going to fix the issue. Inexperienced, yet eager, I started disassembling the top to redo the gaskets. That was 3 years ago. A major pause happened in my life (I was incarcerated). Now I've been out and reunited with my sitting Oldsmobile, contemplating either selling for as good a chunk of money as I can or stripping the engine down to have a machine shop refurbish and me, still relatively inexperienced, reassemble. A well reviewed machine shop quoted me $1000 for reboring and manifluxing the block and heads. I would only be willing to put $2000 max into the engine, but I do have plenty of time on weekends to do labor myself. It would just be a learning process with an old Chilton's, a detailed blueprint of the engine, Youtube, and a couple old heads that are much more experienced than me willing to help out a little. ...
***Pictures attached***
any advice? What in the world should I do?

 

STOP ! You need to explain where this large oil leak was. I have a feeling you may have opened up the engine farther than you need. You need to find a reliable diagnosis of the oil leak. I can't help but wonder if valve cover gaskets were the leak, or valve seals.
You will now need to replace the nylon coated camshaft and crankshaft gears and timing chain.

 

If you've only removed the intake manifold as shown in the pictures you can still do a compression test and even a cylinder leak down test. If the engine has good compression then reassemble it and keep driving.

 

I agree with the above. Large oil leaks are usually the valve covers. When you remove them make sure you clean out the broken pieces of plastic (use needle nose pliers) in the oil return holes at the bottom rear and front of the area covered by the valve covers. No need to rebuild for oil leak. Check the compression, that will tell you if it needs a rebuild.

 

Head gaskets don’t leak oil. I’m betting you have a nasty intake or valve cover leak.

Even with the engine torn down as it is you can do a compression test. If the compression is even but lower than expected, look at timing chain wear. I’d replace the chain regardless just to be safe.

If it ran well but leaked oil, fix the leaks and enjoy the car.