Some background first. My buddy had a consignment RV lot in So.  Ca. He had to get a dealers license and of course had to study and take a test. One of the things he learned was how to tell how many previous owners a vehicle has or had. He took in the '79 Vette that I own, on a trade for a RV that he had bought outright. The title indicated the party that traded the vette was the original owner. Included in the deal was all the documentation she had since the car was purchased. The lowest miles on a reciept for a service was about 3k. So it would indeed seem that she was the original owner also verified by the title. My buddy didn't use the car, he just took it off the lot to his residence. Follow this so far? I got the car with just over 50k on the odometer, along with all the documetation. According to the paperwork, no serious work of a mechanical nature was done on it, just normal service, brakes, battery, tires,ect. Last year, I pulled the diff, cause the clutches were snapping, and went thru it. The bearing caps already had matchmarks on them. According to a local Chevrolet dealership mech, they didn't come with match marks on them from the factory. Ok, that's one point. This week I finished putting new valve stem seals on it. The right bank, by that I mean cyls. 2-4-6-8 all had the small ring type seal on them, and of course they were brittle and broken. On the left bank, cyls. 1-3-5-7, only 7 had the factory type seals on it, also brittle and in pieces. Cyls. 1-3-5 were different. The intakes had Perf. circle seals on them, and the exhaust had umbrella seals on them. If you were having a problem with burning oil after startup, why would you not change #7? That's where the most oil goes to when you shut if off, due to the engine positioning, and where most of the oil puddels up. The umbrella seals that were on #'s 1-3-5 where just as hard as the factory seals on all the rest. The P/C's were still ok. I can't imagine these areas were worked on with just 50k on the odometer. This is the kind of thing that makes you say Hummm?. Did the rear scream when they first drove it? Did it have a valve stem clerance problem from the onstart? Only Zora may know.

Bob, All toll it took me about +/- 4 hours. Yank the valve covers, pull the plugs and air up each cylinder. Pop the springs, intake and exhaust at the same time, put rubber bands on them just incase, put on the new seal, and reinstall the springs. Nuthin to it.

Dave

Seems like when it rains, it pours. Just about ready to fire'er up and now see antifreeze on the ground. Looked at the radiator, and looks like the core is wet in a couple of places on the inside. More likely than not a rotted core, and I change the antifreeze about every year and a half. Makes me want to put some Jack Daniels in the antifreeze and toast the whole thing.

Dave

I worked in a Chevy dealer when our cars were new.  Warranty was not the same as it is today.   If one part in the alternator needed replaced, we did that one part, not an alternator replacement. 

The engine work was the same way.  If one cylinder had a problem, we did that one cylinder repair.  Valve seal, valve, piston ring, what ever it was.  I often had just one head off of a V8.  

And just as Joel says about supplies on the line, the same was true in the dealer.  If we were out of stock, the nearest parts house brought us what we needed.

It was a different world.