TOPIC:

For the last couple months I've been chasing a low compression reading on cylinder No. 3. After much tearing apart, I THINK I've figured out why......

This is going to be a LOOOOOONG winter.....

How did that get bent ?

No clue. I would guess it was like that since I bought it (I had it shipped from Idaho to Michigan. Couldn't really see it beforehand, but... I knew it was a risk)

I'm wondering if hydrolock was part of it. Everything up until that point looked clean- piston, rings, bore (except for a small part on the bottom where the connecting rod kissed it), valves.

Didn't really WANT to pull the motor, but it's looking like it has to happen. I gotta brush up on the manual, find out the correct procedure for fixing this.

Holy Crap.... wow that's sucks!

I agree it must have been from hydraulic lock.

The road to fixing that stats with pulling the engine and splitting the cases. I question if that piston is safe to use again, if the rod bent, that piston must have deformed somehow as well.

If you want to go through the complete tear down and rebuild and there is nothing terminal elsewhere, like a spun rod bearing, then you can do it. It will be expensive...

The faster cheaper easier option is to find a donor engine to swap out or rebuild.

I think I'm going to try to rebuild this one. I've got a LOT of the parts needed for the top end already figured, and with winter coming I can space out buying parts as I get the money. I'm unsure of how many gaskets I'll need for the bottom end, but I have to hit the manual anyway, see what I have in store. Sleeve will have to be replaced (the rod clipped the bottom edge, cracking it), may as well get the piston as well. Rings are slowly trickling in as I get the money. In any case, we'll get this figured out.

A cylinder full of fuel and a hydraulic lock up especially on that side of the engine where carbs are more likely to weep into a cylinder.
From my experience with engines in general the crank will probably be OK if it hasnt been run very much and the piston will look OK but will have fractures in it.
Pull it apart and take it from there.
You could put a running engine in it but with the average age of Z13 engines being over 30 years now I certainly wouldn't trust a used engine to be OK as most of them have been sitting for years and as you have found out the seller usually wont tell you the truth.
Fix what you have then you know what you have.