favorite midwest machine shop for Gen 1 engines

Yeah. You wait until I move back to central Kansas like I want to do within the next year and then you pay me to build it. 

Anything I didn't do myself while I lived there I took to Keever Auto & Machine in Hutchinson, Kansas. I've had them perform all kinds of machine work, including sleeving cylinders, decking blocks, reconditioning rods, and balancing. Always top notch quality work. Jim Keever is an extremely nice man and he knew enough about the AM engines to make me feel comfortable. He's not an "AMC guy" but he's built a few of them. I don't know if he knows his way around the Gen-I or not, but he's smart and I think he could do a good job.

There isn't really anything special about building a Gen-I. What I mean is they don't have any real hidden snags to hang up someone who hasn't built a few. They're pretty straight forward, simple, and everything is detailed in the factory service manual. I think the Gen-II/III is actually harder to build successfully because they DO have hidden snags that have to looked out for and can be easily missed by someone who hasn't built a few. The only real thing to look out for on the Gen-I is to clean out the rocker arm shafts of sludge, make sure the bolts for the rocker arms go in the right order, and to know where to find parts. You can get parts to rebuild them, just not always from EPWI.