Don St Peter

Tim: AMEN to your helping out comments. I'll bet my list is longer than yours! Do you think the bumper jack you mention on E Bay is common to my 40 Ply? Thanks Don

Thanks to all for the great info and suggestions. I have followed up on some of them and I'm on my way to complete the rest. No one mentioned my worst fears, like burnt or stuck valves so I persued the easy ones first with the following findings. 1. I recently overhauled the Carb. and set float level etc. I do notice that the choke connector rod seems to have quite a "free play" and seems to hold the choke butterfly about 5 degrees from full open. This would probably account for the fact I can not get the engine to idle down most of the time without "gunning" the engine then let it back down on it's own. When it does idle down ( sometimes) it seems about right. I also cannot seem to find an adjustment for this on the throttle shaft lever end. Also, I was wondering if the choke spring might be bad by not pulling the choke fully open. From what I'm hearing from you guys this butterfly issue could be my total problem. Do any of you know of an adjustment to get the choke butterfly to stay full open when the choke cable is full "in" at the dash control? 2. There is no fuel in the oil. 3. The plug wires are all new and in good contact with the distributor and AC spark plugs adjusted to .025. 4. The air cleaner is original metal material which I clean with gasoline occassionally. I keep clean oil in the cleaner and do not operate in much dust. 5. I am interested in the "road timing" session mentioned by Greg for checking timing, but I seem to not be able to comprehend the concept, probably because I don't know the terms like "dizzy" and "crank in a little advance" etc. Can I loosen and turn the distributor with the engine running? I'm sorry for showing my ignorance here. Can you help me out here? I am going to get some help running the compression test. Can someone give me an acceptable range for my old engine? Again thanks to all Don

I have been driving my car ( original engine) quite a bit and keep noticing a significant amount of black soot ( carbon I suspect ) on the driveway at the tail pipe. The engine is running smooth, no smoking, little oil usage, but its beginning to worry me because the soot persists and the oil is a very dirty black, even though it has less than 200 miles since oil change. The car is making about 11 miles/gal and I suspect it should be doing much better. The plugs are also showing evidence of "dirty" combustion with some carbon build up. The car seems to be OK on power, but I have not yet checked compression. Since replacing the head gasket, I have been burning regular unleaded gasoline. Should I be adding a lead additive? Does anyone have suggestions as to the problem and possible things to do first.... like adding a bit of diesel fuel to the gas tank, other gas/oil additive, something thru the carb. etc. Thanks in Advance Don