Big Trouble in Little Jersey

[cookiedan@domain.elided (Daniel Nees)]

   Well, I'm ready to get the gun out and put Ed's truck down. <g>
   We pulled the timing cover off and the chain looked pretty good, not
any really bad slack in the chain, and all the teeth were on the gears.
We put the new one in any way, couldn't hurt. Put it all back together
and turned the key... no good. We have spark at the coil, at the plug
wires, the points look 'decent'. I the pulled the #1 cylinder and found
that the plug that should look like this:
   
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[
[          []
[          []
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[                      ]

Now looks like this:

===============
[                          ]
[                          ]
[                          ]

There are multiple impact marks on the top and the electrode is mashed
into the center electrode! All the other plugs look fine. I put my
finger over the #1 cylinder and had Ed crank the engine over. I could
have fallen asleep there, no pressure at all out of it. We then pulled
the valve cover off and all the valves are still there and they all open
correctly. 
   This leads me to believe that the piston connecting rod broke and
propeled the piston into the plug a couple of times. Does that sound
right?
   So, tomorrow we will be dropping the pan and looking at that
cylinder. I intend to just get one piston, rod, and bearing and rings
and just replacing it. Now the problem is the lip at the top of the
cylinder, what do I do with it?
   This is on an AMC 258 I6 engine. What else should I do in this
process? I would really like to reuse the old piston and rings to
prevent the lip thing being a problem, but; if the surface is marred
really bad or cracked I guess I can't reuse it, huh?

_____Dan Nees_____
cookiedan@domain.elided

Good, getting a new heart.
Bad, growing UP.
Ugly, about to under go complete reconstructive surgery.

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