First, thank you for your responses. I have limited funds and really no knowledge or experience, so any information I receive is greatly appreciated. I placed the rods over each other and they seem to be very straight. In my first post I mentioned the crank. I was worried that the crank my be bent for what I saw from cylinder #1. Since that time, I placed the crank back into the block with only the main bearings in position 2 and 4. With the other mains removed from the block I rotated the crank viewing the gaps in the other main bearing location to see if the crank wobbled. I saw no movement and so I am now thinking the crank is not bent. In both the cam and crank there is no scares or pits in the journal locations they seemed only polished.
I agree with you that the #1 rod does not appear to be bent, so the thought goes back to a problem in #1 that has since been repaired which is why the engine has different pistons in different cylinders. Are all 4 rods the same brand, i.e. all Cat or all IPD but not a mixture..?
Regarding getting the liners out, as others have said - a bronze drift and brute force. Once they are out post pictures of what they look like on the outside. The corrosion will probably be spectacular if you're having that much difficulty moving them.
Back to the crank. The only reliable way to prove it's NOT bent is to have a specialist crank shop put it in a pair of V-Blocks, spin it and check the journal runout against specification with a dial test indicator. As DMax says, a crank that small it shouldn't cost much for your peace of mind. At the same time the crank shop could measure all the journals and see if they are standard or undersize and also whether they are are within specification as regards journal diameter. I can probably find the maximum runout tolerance specification somewhere if you need it. I can assure you that you will not be able to see a crank that has a bend in it more than the permitted maximum with the naked eye unless it's REALLY bent. You have already discounted the possibility of a severe bend, the possibility of a very small bend is still there.
A hydraulic lock can be as a result of having either fuel (from a defective injector) or coolant (often from a head gasket leak or the PC chambers in this particular engine). Usually what happens is that when the engine is stopped the affected cylinder fills with fluid from wherever and if the valves are closed when you crank it over on the starter motor the fluid has nowhere to go. The power of a starter motor is plenty to bend a connecting rod if forced up against an immovable object - in this case a fluid-filled cylinder above the piston. Result - banana-shaped rod.
Another question - was the engine using a significant amount of coolant before you stopped it and tore into it..?
