Attempting an engine rebuild

Much appreciate the offer fella but unfortunately you're piggin miles away as I'm in Shropshire.

before i took it apart i would do a compression test dry an wet

Dodgerover..the car runs a 1049cc at the moment and is my daily driver.I've had a 1.3 in it,well two actually,one smoked and the other has a rather large crack across the block.Hoping to make one good one out of the two really.Will still be my daily for spirited driving.Not made of money so not a massive budget.Head has had stem seals and a skim.

Darkspeed...thanks for that fella,may well take you up on that!

Shows the level off my knowledge right there!

Top advice. When rebuilding an engine, doing anything less is a false economy IMO.
An old-school Haynes manual (i.e. the older full strip-down ones, not the later 'maintenance' ones) will be your friend. You'll need the torque settings from the manual, too.
All of that is within the capabilities of a patient amateur with a reasonable set of tools, so good luck. Starting an engine you've built yourself is a great satisfaction.

Some really solid advice in here already.

First thing to remember is you're rebuilding your first engine. You may well lose heart, lose bits, have bits left over at the end. You won't have been the first to experienced it, and it's all good learning.

No 1 rule is cleanliness, no 2 is good order when you're taking stuff to bits. Neither of these two cost money.

Cleanliness - Dirt will ruin bearing surfaces when you start up again, and leaving bits of old gaskets on mating surfaces causes leaks. Guaranteed.
Good Order - Putting the wrong bearing cap on the wrong conrod is unhelpful. Finding you've lost a spacer or a woodruff key when reassembling is unhelpful.

Rule no 3 is to not worry. Your first engine build is likely to go wrong in some way, and your first build is unlikely to be financially ruinous.

Rule no 4 is not to panic. Take it steady, enjoy it, ask for help, take photo's, get a Haynes manual, learn what the different bits are called, know where you can get the bits you're likely to need.

Your shopping list is likely to be a minimum of....

Full gasket set
Piston rings
Main bearings
Crank thrust bearings (if your engine has them)
Big end bearings
Crankshaft oil seals
Valve stem oil seals
New core plugs.
Assembly lube

Next priorities would probably be
Timing chain tensioner
Timing chain
Cam and crank sprockets
Oil pump
Valves

You'll need to see if the bores and pistons are standard size before ordering the rings - clean the top of the piston to find out. If there's no discernible wear ridge at the top of the bore, you probably don't need a rebore and new pistons and rings to get a good compression, just hone the bores, clean the Pistons and ring grooves, re ring the Pistons and you're good to go.

Have a look at the main bearings (remembering to keep track of where the main bearing caps came from) and check the back of the bearing to see if the crank journals have been ground and you need oversized bearings. Same for the big end bearings.

When you've got down to the bare block, clean it until you get thoroughly bored. If you get thoroughly bored before you've finished cleaning it once, you need to find some additional stimulation to keep you at it, or a new hobby, one that doesn't involve rebuilding dirty engines.

Rod the sludge out of all the oil ways you can find. Figure out how the oil pump sends oil round the engine, shove a brush up and through every orifice you can.

REPLACE THE CORE PLUGS NOW. Or leave it until you've reinstalled the engine and the following week a core plug that needs you to pull the engine out rusts through. Your call.

Reassembly generally starts with the crank. Main bearings in - make sure they're seated right. Put some reassembly lube on the bearing surface. Not the back of the bearing, the bit the crank rubs against. Then drop the crank in place. HAVING CLEANED IT AND RODDED THE OILWAYS. Main bearing shells on the bearing caps - assembly lube - bearing caps bolted down to the block. Do the caps one at a time - right cap in the place it came from and torqued down properly. Don't forget the washer if the bolt had one. Clean the thread, but don't oil it. One cap at a time. Does the crank still rotate smoothly? Check this with every bit you bolt on. The crank will progressively get more difficult to turn. If it gets much more difficult after one more bearing surface being tightened, that one is your problem. Don't bolt it all up and then wonder what went wrong.

Once the crank is in, Pistons and rods next. Because you were careful taking it apart, you know which way round the piston goes in the bore and which bore the piston came from. Same stuff with big end bearings, lube, torque settings, rotate crank etc as before.

Bored typing now, but you get the general idea.

Have fun

Some truly epic advice there guys,really appreciate it and will be referring to it all through my journey.Got the two engines in the van as they were stored at work.Will get them out over the weekend and get them cleaned up ready to begin.

Aswell as this, I got a load of small sealing sandwich bags and bagged everything up as soon as it came off, labelled it and put it in a tray. Once you've had the engine appart for a while, you'll forget what that little 8mm bolt was for!