Piston/cylinder bore gap?

[MadVanMan]

I bought my first vehicle which is a 89 turbo voyager. It had a blown headgasket when I bought it. When I took the head off to replace the gasket, I can see a noticeable gap between the pistons and the cylinder bore. Is this normal?

I've never torn into an engine before so I don't really know what things are supposed to look like. The van has 185,000 miles on it and I don't know if the engine has been rebuilt before.
Do I have to get the engine rebuilt or is this gap normal?

So far this has not been a pleasurable experience for me. I've already broken vacuum line couplings and metal coolant lines, rounded the heads of bolts, broke my socket wrench, and I broke the head off of one of the bolts that hold the exhaust manifold to the head so now the hole is plugged with the shaft of the bolt .

I hope i dont have to get the engine rebuilt.
Any help would be appreciated.

[turbovanman]

Normal. The top of the piston is smaller as it expands more due to the heat. The only way to if the engine is worn out is compression test, leak down test or take the piston out, take the rings off and measure the piston to bore clearance and measure the bore to see if its tapered or out of round. Is there a ridge at the top of the cylinder that you can catch your finger nail on, not the carbon but a metal ridge. If there is one, its getting worn and tired.