Well I answered my own question.
When looking at the top of the liner I saw what looked like two concentric circles. It looked like there was a thin liner inside an outer body. Inside the block was what I thought was the red cruddy looking water jacket for the liner.
I have now learned that the whole thing was the liner. So no it isn't straight and the picture of a new liner I saw with the bulge was in fact correct. What threw me was that the two concentric circles on top really did look like a liner inside an alloy block sleeve like I had seen on other engines I have worked on previously. Stupid me!
I attempted to press out the liner using a hydraulic press and a home made liner puller. I gave up after applying 5 tonnes of pressure on the liner for fear of cracking the alloy block. There was no way it was going to move. Even a little bit.
Given that I had already indicated that the liners were too damaged to get bored out, I decided to use the "butcher's method". I had previously successfully removed a damaged liner in an Alfa 1600 GT many years ago. Some people will shudder to think what I have done, but it works. But obviously only for a completely trashed liner. I had rung around a few machine shops to get these machined out but not only was the cost ridiculously high, most said that they would still have to remove the last little bit using a chisel anyway in case the liner was out of round.
NOTE: WEAR EYE PROTECTION and support the bottom of the liner with some timber.
I used an angle grinder to cut a number of slots in the top of the liner, well away from any of the alloy "posts" that stick up from the bottom of the engine. I then used a wide metal chisel and struck each slot hard until the liner cracked. I continued to do this until as much of the liner that sticks up from where the liner sits in the block, or as close as possible to this.
Why do this? To reduce the width of the liner that needs to be cut in the next section.
I then laboriously used a hand held hacksaw blade in a little saw attachment (not the normal one but one where you can insert broken blades into a little saw) and started to cut a slot in the width of the piston in a convenient spot - usually the bottom of course. I used a 24 tooth blade. You can use just the blade but it hurts your hand after a while. It took maybe 15 minutes of sawing and checking to cut almost through to the alloy. You have to be careful of course and need to check often. Shining a light back from the cut gives you a good idea of how deep you are.
At first you can start cutting at an angle to get the slot going and then go more horizontal to get the slot close to the alloy. You can see from the swarf whether you are cutting cast or alloy and you can certainly hear the difference in sound if you go too far. I marked the alloy in one spot but that should be OK.
You could use an air hacksaw if you have one, but it would be too easy to over cut. Perhaps you could cut 3/4 of the way with an air hacksaw and then do the last bit by hand.
I then proceeded to stick a chisel in the slot cut and bang away until the slot cracked open. Yes you have to give it a bit of a hard hit to get it to crack. The less metal you have left, the easier it is for the liner to crack there. If you are brave and cut close, you have to hammer less. Once the liner breaks, you can lightly tap the liner out with a chisel or screwdriver or punch. You'll hear the change in pitch of the liner when it does break. But first remove any burrs that you have on the top of the liner because if you don't they will gouge the inner alloy as you push the liner through.
This worked really well for me, except on one liner. After smacking away at the slot it just would not crack and I was worried about giving the liner too much violence. So my solution was to cut a second slot parallel to the first one about the width of my small chisel apart.Once I got the slot deep as I thought I needed, I tried again to smack the new slot but it wouldn't again crack. So I then proceeded just to "chisel" out with my sharp small chisel like you would using a wood chisel to make a mortise. Bits of cast would crack off and then about 1/4 way down the whole thing just gave way and the liner came loose.
I know this is not good engineering and with a full engineering workshop at my disposal I would have done differently, but I managed to get the thing done with little damage to the mating surfaces (which will smooth out with some emery paper).
The liners themselves were just covered in 30 odd years of dried coolant which had made a very stubborn cement to hold the liners in place. But I did not really see any evidence of any paper gasket, unless it had disintegrated over the years.
Now to find some new liners and pistons. I will try the dry ice method to cool down the liners and perhaps heat the block to allow me to slip the new liners in place.
), which is probably close to original material, and thickness 0.05mm (seals provided with gasket set were 0.25mm, way too thick.) Just for additional sealing I put also very thin layers of non-setting Würth DP300 sealant.