Is "oil dilution or wash out piston rings" something that I should be concerned about possibly causing engine damage if it continues while we are diagnosing my engine problem?

 

Well it should be remedied sooner than later. Post a pic of a plug or two? Don't stress, you'll get it fixed up I'm sure. Just keep at it. Engines are tough and will put up with lots of abuse. Ask me how I know ha ha

 

BeauF0RD, there isn't much mention about the history of the truck or the engine. I have two thoughts:

1. Seems I remember reading that one could put a 351W cam in a 302 engine... you just have to account for the different firing order. You could verify that you have the correct firing order by popping the valve covers and rotating the engine to follow the firing sequence. I know this is a wild idea, but popping through the carb always seems to be backwards plugs or timing related instead of carb (at least in my experience)

2. Did you take pics before taking it apart the first time? If so you may be able to refer to those and ensure you've hooked everything back up the same way you took it apart.

Otherwise, I think the advice from Tedster9 is spot on. Good luck, I'm interested to see what the solution is.

 

bsraborn, thanks for stopping in and offering help, I appreciate all help. The elderly man I bought the truck off of had it since 1983 and never mentioned a rebuild. The truck is kind of a dog when it comes to the power department so I don't think it has anything from a 351W inside of it. We did put new spark plugs and spark plug wires on the truck but followed the firing order that was already in place when I got the truck, 15426378. This should be the correct firing order according to the Ford shop manual.


Here is the engine when I first bought the truck.

 

Tedster9, here is a picture of plug #6 and it looks the same as plug #1.


This is a Autolite copper spark plug

 

Picture of new spark plug wires.


Street Fire Wire by MSD

 

Yowzers. Yeah she's just a tad on the rich side of the fuel mixture

Float level is good? I haven't gone through all the posts again to refresh memory but it's close to flooding.

 

I always giggle at the "one tooth off" comment regarding a distributor install......there's no such thing.


You are correct regarding not being 180* off....it won't start at all if that were the case.

One thing that has piqued my interest is you mentioning you "shimmed" the valves.

I'm assuming you're referring to the pedestal mount rockers??

Adjusting pedestal mount rockers is actually a step that needs to be done correctly contrary to popular belief.

Bolt torque on the rocker must be achieved between a 1/4 and 1 turn with the pushrod slightly preloaded and off the cam lobe.

Over 1 turn needs shims...

Under 1/4 turn needs longer pushrod.

Google "adjusting ford pedestal mount rockers" and you'll find a pdf and other videos.

I'm wondering if you have too much or too little preload on your lifters.


Otherwise im leaning to a bad carb tune/rebuild.

 

caly350, thanks for your input on my issues. We put the shim, now two shims under the lash cap on the #2 valve because it was loose and rattled no matter how much we tightend the nut. All the other rockers were tight. My neighbor said there is no torque limit on tightening the rockers, so he cranked them all down with all his strength. I will google adjusting ford pedestal rockers right now. Thanks.

 

From memory, torque is 20#.

Like I'd mentioned:

Make sure you’re at TDC on the hole you're adjusting...(off the cam lobes)

You want to be more than a 1/4 turn and less than a full turn to hit that 20#.

Good luck.

 

 

caly350, thanks again, we will revisit the rockers and make sure the torque is done right.

 

My neighbor came today and I got to try out my new OTC vacuum gauge. We hooked it up to the manifold vacuum port and started the engine. The gauge immediately went up to 18 and held steady. when the engine got up to operating temperature we tried to adjust the idle mixture screws to get a higher vacuum reading but ended up with a high reading of 18 with a slow drifting fluctuation between 18 and 17. With the thoughts this was about as good of a reading that we were going to get we tried slowly increasing throttle and the vacuum gauge also slowly raised. We than blipped the throttle and the vacuum gauge raised than dropped to or near zero. But we also got a backfire when we tried to blip the throttle a second time. We also turned the idle mixture screws all the way in and the engine died telling us the power valve is functioning, that's good. I wanted to know what size power valve I had so we decided to just pull the carb. and take it back apart, it's laying on my work bench right now. I have a 6.5 power valve, the jets read 64, the squirter reads 31, and I have a orange accelerator pump cam.

 

 

Things we discovered when we took the carburetor apart. The power valve had two gaskets instead of only one. The squirter was missing the check valve. And the accelerator pump cam is orange, worn, and was hooked up to the second screw hole position on the carburetor. Any advice on the sizes of jets, power valve, accelerator pump cam?