knuckleharley

You won't notice any real power difference between a 218 and a 230 when driving normally. The modifications mean nothing unless you are accelerating or driving at higher than normal speeds. They just look cool,and maybe help your gas mileage a little because the engine is more effecient.

You already have the head off and have to replace the head gasket,so IMHO,it doesn't make any sense to NOT lap the valves. The cost is minuscule ,and when you button it back up you will know you can probably drive the car for years and not have to worry about this again.. You will need a valve spring compressor,a "spinner" with rubber suction cups to spin the valve,a magnet on a expandable rod like a radio antenna to catch any wayward valve keepers,valve-lapping compound,and Dykem lay-out blue. If you want to get anal about it,a magnetic dial indicator base and a dial indicator so you can check the valve springs before you take them out by rotating the engine by hand and seeing how high they get raised. Now would be the perfect time to replace any weak valve springs. You can probably just buy a whole stet of valve springs cheaper than the magnetic base and the dial indicator,but they are useful for other things also,and once you have them they are paid for and don't eat anything. You will also need an exhaust manifold gasket. And maybe most important,a factory service manual and/or a Motors Automobile Repair Manual that covers your year car. Spend a day or two reading what both have to tell you about doing valve jobs,and let it sink in a little before spending any money. Below is a link to lave lapping tools for sale. The simple wooden ones with rubber suction cups are plenty good for occasional jobs,and cheap. https://www.google.com/search?q=valve+lapping+tools+for+sale&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 The machinist layout dye and the valve lapping compound can be bought at your local auto parts store that sells the tools if you decide to buy the tools on-line,but now might be a good time to become known to the local parts guys at your local NAPA store. Unlike most auto parts stores these days,the guys at a NAPA store counter usually know enough to give you advise if you get stuck,and might be able to help you out in other ways in the future. No retail web site in another state is going to offer those services on a personal level. Don't knock the value of personal contacts.

Lap the old valves. Any that won't clean up need to be replaced. No need to spend money you don't have to spend.

After you pull the head the engine will have zero compression,and you can easily turn it over using the fan while watching to see the valves open and close. Any that remain open or don't close all the way are obviously stuck. Any that open but don't close all the way are probably bent. Since it ran great when you first started driving it,this seems unlikely to me. My money is still on ignition/coil and/or gasoline problems.

It's been my experience both times I had this problem is that when you have an intake leak you can hear it whistle.

If it were me,I think I would sign up for a night basic auto mechanic course at a local community college. I would definitely be looking for a new mechanic. Just telling you the compression in 3 cylinders is bad without telling you the numbers and the possible reasons tells me he didn't really want to fool with it and was trying to scare you away by telling you the engine needs to be rebuilt. The first thing you need to do is go to Amazon or Ebay and buy a Motors Automobile Repair Manual that covers 1950 cars,and go to the basic repairs section to learn how to do compression checks and to check and repair ignitions. They not only tell you how to do things like this in plain language you can understand,they also provide a lot of really clear photos to show you and tell you the tools you need to do the work if they are specialized tools. Best money you will ever spend on your car. https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2055119.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H1.Xmotors+auto+repair+manual+1950.TRS0&_nkw=motors+auto+repair+manual+1950&_sacat=0 https://www.amazon.com/MoToRs-Repair-Manual-Harold-Blanchard/dp/B000P1TW4E

Sounds like either the coil or the points to me. Most likely the coil. "Point bounce" is more common in engines that turn a lot more RPM's than your flat 6 turns. Since it is a good idea to carry a spare coil,points,condenser,and distributor cap in the trunk anyhow,and a HELL of a lot cheaper than paying a roll-back to carry you home,why not just buy all that stuff new and try it one at a time until the problem goes away,starting with the coil? Coils crack and get burnt out from getting too hot from bad grounds,but it's the cracked ones that operate fine to start an engine and then operate at low RPM's. Once they get hot and the demand on this climbs from higher RPM the crack widens from the heat and you lose fire.

Get it running again,get it up to normal operating temperature,and then take something like a soda bottle where you can cover the opening with your thumb,fill it part way with tap water,and slowing dribble,and I DO mean "dribble",as in "NOT POUR" a few drops of water into the carb at a time while you operate the accelerator with your hand. You will get a "feel" for it as you do it. You will know you are done when it quits throwing out a cloud of dark smoke from the tailpipe. That will be your carbon disappearing. White smoke is the water. Black smoke is the carbon. Your engine doesn't appear to be that coked up,but you will see more than you expect coming out the tailpipe because there will probably be a certain amount of backfiring that will also clean out the exhaust manifold,exhaust pipe,muffler,and tailpipe. I also recommend pulling your plugs after you have done this and take a look at the electrodes. Sometimes they can suffer a bit from this process because they will be full of carbon too,when you start doing this,and they are at ground zero of the explosions and the thinnest metal involved. If they are questionable,replace them.

Take the side covers off so you can see what you are doing and to make sure there isn't something you can't see that is causing the problem. Turn the engine by hand until you can see that the stuck valve should be closed,but isn't. Use some sort of penetrating oil (Kroil is good) in a squirt can to try to lube the valve stem at the top of the engine as well as through the valve inspection/adjustment ports,and then take a hammer with plastic faces and gently tap on top of the valve to get it to seat. Patience is more of a key word than "brute force" here. Lube the valve stem again once it bottoms,and then spin the engine over by hand to open it again. If it closes on it's own,lube it up again and spin it over several times to make sure it doesn't stick again. Lube up all the other valve stems while you are at it. If they weren't all dry,none of them would have been stuck. Finally,consider hand-lapping them all while you are at it to bring your compression readings up. You already have the head and the side covers off,so why not? You can do it using one of those sticks with the suction cups on them to spin the valves,and something like Dykem Lay-Out Blue like machinists use so you can visually see when each valve is making full contact with the seat,but the lay-out dye and the stick with the rubber suction cups are cheap,so it's no big deal. You might want to buy a magnet on a telescoping handle to make it easier to deal with the valve keepers,but you can use that on a bunch of stuff,so it's not a "special" tool.

Dollies are nice as long as you get the good ones. I have two sets of the cheaper ones,and they flat suck. One set is under my 33 Dodge sedan,and it literally takes two men to even push the car forward or backwards,never mind side to side. Seems like the wheels were drilled off-center. I use the worse set to move engines around. They roll ok with just one of them having weight on it,but when you put 4 under a car they seem to work against each other. BTW,I'm not what I used to be,especially when it comes to flexibility,but I have no trouble picking up 200 lbs and walking across the shop floor with it,so it's not like I am feeble. The moral to this story is if you buy dollies,do NOT buy the cheaper ones sold by Northern Hydraulics,Harbor Freight,etc,etc,etc. The 3rd set of 4 I bought were the hydraulic pump-jack wheel dollies by Eastwood. These work like a dream. Yeah,they were expensive,but I can no longer bend over and work,and at the time I bought them my knees wouldn't bend,so I needed something I could roll over to whatever I wanted to move,and then just pump them up to move the car and then lower them so the car wheels would be on the floor again. Truth to tell,if you have 3 or 4 cars you sometimes need to move around,buying one pair of these is cheaper than buying 3 or 4 sets of even the crap ones that don't roll worth a damn If you only have one car to move around,do yourself a favor and step up a grade of two when you buy the standard dollies. After all,what good are they if you have to get someone to come over to help you move the car sitting on the dollies. No,I do NOT work for or have stock in Eastwood.

I guess everybody needs a hobby,but a flathead 8 Packard isn't going to breath any better than any other flathead engine,and I suspect that blower (6-71?) will be underdriven to the point where it doesn't do much. Pretty cool to look at,though.

YIKES! You have rust problems like I see on that PU in Indiana?

That's a mighty impressive display of 40's Mopars. One any Mopar club in the US would be proud of.

That sure is a pretty green on that dashboard. Factory shade? If so,what's it called?

Do you start bleeding them at the wheel that is the one far away from the mastery cylinder,and then continue bleeding them until you bleed the one on the left front last? Have you bled your master cylinder? How do your rubber lines look? If they are old,have someone look at them to see if they are swelling when you have pumped up pressure and hold your foot on the brake pedal.

San Francisco,where else? And she has a beard and Harley tats.

It's shorted out. You are going to have to remove it to take it apart and physically inspect it to see if there are any obvious shorts,or if the armature itself is bad.

Maybe they can just go back to the old-timey hobby of scalp collecting? Eliminating bloviating political creatures from the Eco-system would even be a public service.

It won't. By then everyone in Ca will travel by butterfly wings,not cars. The roads will be wide open for antique cars until they crack and disappear.

Simple and cheap might as well be my middle names.

Something is wrong if you can't turn one of these low-compression engines over by hand using the fan and a tight fan belt, with the spark plugs out.

That 1917 Dodge sure is a spiffy-looking car,ain't it?

I love hearing stories like that,and envy you all the pleasure you have had from enjoying your car all these years. My father hated old cars,and the first 3 I bought with money I earned working on a shrimp boat or doing construction labor summers while in high school,he sold while I was at school and kept the money for himself. I even found out later there were relatives that knew I loved old cars when I was a kid that wanted to GIVE me the old cars they had been driving,and he wouldn't let them do it. One was a 33 Chevy Master 3 window coupe a relative had just driven from Tacoma to Norfolk,Va,so you know it was in good condition. That one he did give to me,but I didn't know that until later. I was told he gave it to my father,and my father called a junkyard and had them come get it for junk because he didn't want it in the yard.

If you want to give this a try,I have a P-15 chassis someone already cut off in front of the firewall that you can have for free if you want to come get it. The guy clearly didn't know what he was doing,and seems to have cut the chassis off and then tried to weld a front clip from an Impala stationwagon to it. The extra foot or so of wheelbase didn't work well,so I bought it for parts,cut the tacked on Impala front clip off,and sold it for scrap. I had sorta been thinking about keeping it,welding a trailer tongue on it,and turning it into a P-15 tag along sleeper-trailer to pull behind my coupe. Too old and too many unfinished projects. Anybody that wants it,just come and get it. I will be selling the body parts like the doors and the roof,though.

Well,you have removed the surface rust and have laid a coat of primer on it,so AFAIAC,you are making good progress.