picture time.


the car :


engine bay :


carb:



float bowl cover pictured to show how torqued out the 4 mounts are on it. and yes no matter what it does seep a bit of gas.



guts. - special note - also missing the inner baffle







somehow magicly now the third part manages to line up with its respective hole... maby I managed to bugger it back to its origonal position or it has worn its self a new groove to hinge on.

the plastic ears that hold the part to the main boddy are a bit worn and allow some wiggle room in it... so this part needs to be replaced im shure. and quite seriously - im amazed and baffled now as to why this piece lines up to press in all 3 of the loaded bearings in the block now. last time I had the carb apart - maby a month ago - no matter what I tried to do I could not get the little plastic arm to line up to get all 3 spots like its doing now.


after taking apart my carb - I cleaned it with parts cleaner - and re assembled it carefully.

this is a shot before cleanign showing my low speed settings and ugly residue on the carb bore.



so I also decided to pull out my plugs to see how they looked.
I had a spare set that I cleaned and gaped to .035 and then as per slant 6 dans directions I took off the crush washers on them. - as I had not done this yet.

this photo shows the plugs I pulled out. plugs are #1 front of engine back...





and I was basicly horrified to see my plugs this nasty.
note the crush washers are still on - and the rear most plug has some oil residue on it. the rest are just black soot covered - and covered completely.


so the plug set with out the washers were in. I put the carb back on - and gave all my engine fastners a little tightning. I noticed my carb bolts were not verry tight to the intake when removing - but the gasket showed no signs of leaking.

what the heck - ill fire it up.
starts up nicely after gas fills the float bowl.
drove it around the block a fiew times - after it warmed up - it ran verry nicely. no more hickups or sputters or part throttle coughs. its verry responsive to sudden gas pedal stabs - and runs about as good as it ever did when ive owned it ( a little bit over a year now i think )


im going to take it out on a drive tonight to see how it goes.
one thing I did notice that is also making me a bit weary is the breather cap is steadily puffing out a bit of smoke.
I took off the oil fill cap and tried to snap a pic of it.



there apears to be a little small puf of smoke in my pix - but in real life it is a little worse than the pictures are. engine is running in park during pictures. if I grab the throttle and reve to 2k rpm smoke increases by double coming out of the breather


im off for a drive now. please lmk what you guys would avise.

im still currently dead set on getting another carb to have as I realley dont like the fact that mine is functinal at the moment - but wasnt before and I diddnt realley do anything to "fix" the problem... so I anticipate it to pop back up again soon.

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1972 Plymouth Valiant / slant 6 auto

Brian,

Glad you got it put back together and it's working. When you call Joe's ask for the three plunger plastic arm. It's for the enrichment circuit that the power valve actuates.

In the future when you have the economizer body out I thoroughly flush each ball out with carb cleaner so they seal.

What #jet are you running?

Any idea how many miles on the engine? 100,000, 200,000 ?

I would do a compression test on each cylinder. If they are low (below 100#'s) you might try running a little Rislone to free up the rings. If you try a quart of Rislone it may take a few thousand miles before it cleans the carbon out so they can seal again. Stuck rings and cracked or missing valve guide seals will contribute to oil fouling the plugs.

_________________
Aggressive Ted

http://cid-32f1e50ddb40a03c.photos.live ... %20Swinger


74 Swinger, 9.5 comp 254/.435 lift cam, 904, ram air, electric fans, 2.5" HP2 & FM70 ex, 1920 Holley#56jet, 2.76 8 3/4 Sure-Grip, 26" tires, 25+MPG

I hadnt even thought about my rings being stuck before.
I thought it might of been just a bad seal with them / and possibly the valve seals need replacing.

as for mileage - any ones guess is as good as ?
spedo cable is not properly working atm - is the main reason I have a tac installed atm.

jetting - again - im a carb newb. so I have no idea


can I also ask for an engine oil and weight recomendation for my car to use when im gona try and un stick the rings ?

right now im using 15/50 weight mostly to help get better compression on the cylinders / prevent exessive smoking from the exaust.

there is a local guy to me who has a complete slant carb to pan out of a dart with a rebuild with less than 5k on it with a manual tranny ( mine is auto ) but he wants 500 for it. and wont seperate from the tranny... he shoehorned in a chevy 350 in his dart lol. im wondering what a full engine rebuild would cost me including parts and machine work - if it might be more economical to grab the second motor to drop in.

Id realley like to pull my motor and inspect it to see what the heck is going on with it. I would suspect that there is a bunch of sludge built up in it - and that the cylinder walls would need re finishing - deck surfaced - head surfaced and new valves / valve job done on it.... and being a slant newby - im just not shure how much all that would reasonably cost to do.

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1972 Plymouth Valiant / slant 6 auto

Brian,

I am sure the guys will chime in with various prices for rebuilds, that question was asked not too long ago on an earlier post. If you do a rebuild try to get the block decked for some added compression. It does wonders for power and economy. Next time you have the bowl off pull the jet and tell us what is stamped on it. I have it down to about 5 minutes from shutting the engine off to pulling the jet, replacing it with another and having the engine running again. And that is with one good eye... Too keep the gasket from leaking I always use 30 weight oil on the carb side of the gasket so I can pull it with out sticking next time. Don't over tighten, just snug will work. I let the gasket stick to the bowl side. A carb bowl gasket can last several years and never leak. You might want to take a file to the carb bowl mounting ears and fill them flat to get a little more clearance or find another carb bowl that hasn't been over torqued.
I would use 10-30 weight oil and a quart of Rislone.

On cleaning engines internally.........
Last Christmas I picked up an 1979 SL6 barn find. It had been sitting covered with hay for about 8 years, no distributor, fuel pump or dipstick in it. The guy said it ran good when he pulled it. I gave him $150 for it.
We pulled my engine and picked up this one and dropped it in my car. It took about 2 hours to drain the oil and all the glop out of it. The valve train looked like it was encrusted with flaking grit ready to fall off and plug something up. There was just enough moisture in the barn to loosen it up and start some surface rust on the outside of the engine. I wondered what the cylinders looked like as I squirted a healthy dose of oil in them. We installed my carb, fuel pump, dipstick and distributor from my engine and spun it over with out the plugs in it. I pulled the plugs from my other engine and fired it up. It would only run on 5 cylinders and huffed and puffed a lot. The PCV couldn't keep up with that much blow by. I was about 2 hours from home and figured that with a crank case full of 10-30 Shell Rotella ($10. for a jug at WalMart) and a quart of Rislone the rings might free up and start running on all six cylinders.
It was 2:30 am in the morning when I headed home from the Bremerton area and by the time I got to the Tacoma Narrows bridge I noticed it started running a little smoother and by the time I got all the way home it was running pretty good. After running it every day and 3 more oil changes @ 1000 mile intervals I took a big leap of faith and the next time I changed the oil to 0-30W Mobil 1. It has been a year now and the valve train is very clean and the engine purrs like a cat and has 145 lbs compression in each cylinder and no more huffing and puffing.

The point is, you might get lucky and get more life out of yours while your saving money and planning for a rebuild.
Great shots and nice looking car!

_________________
Aggressive Ted

http://cid-32f1e50ddb40a03c.photos.live ... %20Swinger


74 Swinger, 9.5 comp 254/.435 lift cam, 904, ram air, electric fans, 2.5" HP2 & FM70 ex, 1920 Holley#56jet, 2.76 8 3/4 Sure-Grip, 26" tires, 25+MPG

thanks for all the tips ted.

me and the valiant went for a nice drive tonight - and it was a blast to get out and crooze with her. I missed driving the car so much - I think im going to put her on daily driving service now to help put some miles on the fresh 10/30 and quart of rislone to see if I can improve the spark plug soot problem. its pretty cold outside down here in south FL actually in the 40's and dipping to the 30s - so I expected the engine to run slightly cooler than normal. driving down the road - my temp guage tells me im getting up to 180 max - and stopped at a light I might drop down to the 165 area. does this seem a little cool ? im running a stock radiator - but a summit racing 6 blade plastic aftermarket fan blade - direct mount also - so no fan clutch..... I figured the 195 thermostat I have in at the moment would help keep tempatures higher than they are.


now I need to source the correct parts to do a valve seal replacment.
are factory replacments the way to go - or is there a better option for valve seals now adays ?
where to buy them from also - ?

I believe somewhere I saw a spark plug thread air chuck that you install like a spark plug - and then connect to your air compressor to keep the valves "preassurized" up to allow valve springs to come off with out the valves falling down in the engine. id imagine this might work pretty ok unless my piston rings have a realley terrible seal for them. lol. maby a fiew squirts of 30 weight oil in the hole before putting in the air hose bit to help seal it better. haha


I am realley exited to be driving the car again tho. im realley falling in love with it again.

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1972 Plymouth Valiant / slant 6 auto

Brian just remove a sparkplug and feed into the hole a small cord maybe about 3 ft with short piece sticking out of the hole to remove when you are finished with that cylinder. Roll by hand until piston is close to top and compressing cord, no worry about leakdown letting valve drop into cylinder.

Richard

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Part of Tyrde-Browne Racing

aw man that sounds super easy and like a logical thing to do !
thanks for the helpful idea man.


can some one post in with some part numbers of good valve seals for a stock 225 - ? thanks in advance

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1972 Plymouth Valiant / slant 6 auto