Hey folks. Long time lover of the site, but haven't had to tap this mine of experience and knowledge in a while. Here's my situation...

I took my 63 Valiant into the shop to get the coolant flushed, the transmission fluid changed, a new muffler installed and that's about it. They said that a transmission mount had to be changed, so apparently that was done. Otherwise, that's it.

Take the car back, and it's slow, it's gutless. It had literally never been power-wise such a sad sack. Getting to 50mph was like 20-30 seconds. Just nightmarish performance.

Call them, they're like bring it in! But before that, having had some weird distributor vibes as of late, I figured, hell, I'll change out the distro.

Seems to be same as ever. Now the shop is saying "You have zero compression in 1, 2 and 5 cylinders. You may AT LEAST need a valve job."

Problem: The engine was rebuilt like 7-8 years ago, with brand new pistons and a complete valve job. There is probably 15K miles on the engine, so the idea of some kind of "catastrophic failure" seems quite, quite iffy.

Anyway. That's what I've got. A 1 week minor situation has become something that could last a month. I need any help or ideas that I can get here. Thanks!

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63 Plymouth Valiant V200 Convertible.
225, HEI, Super Six with 38/38 Weber, Electric Fans, Scarebird discs, FirmFeel front swaybar.

That does sound a bit suspicious.
Find someone else that can give you a second opinion. The work that you had done won't mess with the valve sealing.

And if you do need a rebuild again, DO NOT have the first outfit do it. If they did something to your engine to try to drum up some work, that would give them opportunity to cover up what they messed with.

Roger

I wonder if they blocked off the exhaust partially? I'm sure they screwed something up, by mistake or on purpose... I suggest buying yourself a compression tester ($30) and testing comp with the engine warm. If the valve lash is out of adjustment, that would cause low compression readings and bad idle, but NOT lower power levels on acceleration. That also would not happen all of a sudden, unless the shop did it on purpose. Hard to diagnose this, but maybe more description of how it is behaving??

Dang...

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

Two things that you had done could possibly cause a problem. You had the trans fluid changed. If they changed the filter, also They might have used the wrong filter. I don't know if this could cause the problem you are having or not. The filter for the 65 and older TF's had two fluid supply holes. The filter for the 66 and newer TF"S only had one hole. If the late filter was used it would starve the rear pump in the trans. The early filters are not as common, and most shops are not aware of this issue. Probably not your problem as the 63 had a screen in the pan and used a filter in the cooler line. I spoke to A&A Trans and they stated that the wrong filter will usually cause shifting problems, possibly starting off in the wrong gear.
Another thing that could cause low power would be a defective muffler, causing excessive back pressure.

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Charrlie_S
65 Valiant 100 2dr post 170 turbo
66 Valiant Signet 170 nitrous
64 Valiant Signet
64 Valiant 4dr 170
64 Valiant 4dr 225

Red flags, oh yes. Where'd they get the (unavailable) replacement trans fluid filter for your '63? Or, my guess, they didn't know to look for it so they left the old one on, clipped to its bracket just ahead of the starter, and maybe they removed/discarded the intake screen and threw on a '64-'65 type filter—or, more likely, a '66-up filter without the necessary dual fluid ports—so now there's a bunch more restriction plus a dirty old filter. Using the wrong filter will starve the rear pump. Operating the car that way for very long will cause transmission damage. Until then, because the governor operates off rear-pump pressure, upshifts might be delayed (late shifting 1-2 and 2-3). But if the kickdown linkage is messed up or missing, it's still going to shift into 3rd at much too low a road speed, leaving you with sluggish acceleration.

And did they bother to drain the torque converter? Did they even know it's possible?
Maybe, but that mount is no longer a "call up the parts store and they'll deliver it this afternoon" item, so…I doubt.
Makes me suspect they screwed up the kickdown linkage so the transmission shifts 1-2-3 at very low road speed, leaving you trying to get up to speed in third gear.
Not wise. This gives them an excuse to blame everything on you. And what is a "weird distributor vibe"?
Uh-huh. If you had zero compression in three cylinders, the engine would barely run, if at all. You didn't mention anything like that; sounded more like the engine runs normally, but the car's sluggish. That means no, you don't have "zero compression in 1, 2, and 5".

How'd you choose this shop?
Did you pay with a credit card? Because if so, you can dispute the charge.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Hope this doesn't break any rules, but here's at least a sense of the sound (first 20 seconds, anyway):

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pKWkoW8Zhw0

Just zilch power. Sounds fine on idle and with no load, but you put some load on that dog and it's popping and clicking and providing zero power.

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63 Plymouth Valiant V200 Convertible.
225, HEI, Super Six with 38/38 Weber, Electric Fans, Scarebird discs, FirmFeel front swaybar.

First mistake.... You "took it in".... Most shops would have no idea how to do much of anything on a new car let alone a 60 year old one.

How about spark plug wires on wrong? It is definitely not running on all cylinders by the sound of it.

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

That car sounds awful. You've got a giant exhaust leak or something else making it sound like an old VW Beetle. Did it always sound like this?

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Haha! No! That's the thing! It never sounded like this before! This thing was strong as an ox and sounded beautiful until I brought it in last week.

I'm going to replace the final 4 plugs (already have done 2), and relook at the firing order, pick up some spark plug wires.

My Dad watched the video, too, and was like, "Yep, not all of your cylinders are firing, that sounds very obvious to me."

Ol' Dad had a '78 Plymouth Volare, so he's seen some things

Thanks for the help. Also great to see ol' Slant Six Dan still on the board! Always appreciated your acerbic insights! Now appreciating them live!

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63 Plymouth Valiant V200 Convertible.
225, HEI, Super Six with 38/38 Weber, Electric Fans, Scarebird discs, FirmFeel front swaybar.

If that doesn't help, then start it and pull one plug wire at a time. Then at least you will know which cylinders are not firing.

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2 Mopars come with Spark plug tubes. One is a world class, racing machine. The other is a 426 CI. boat anchor!

12.70 @ 104.6

Well. Thanks for the help in here.

Ended up changing out all plugs, new cap, rotor, some wires.

Pulling a spark plug wire from a cylinder does what you'd expect: serious idle decline.

EXCEPT with Cylinder 1 (big nothing, it appears this one isn't firing, as idle remains exactly the same)
and Cylinder 2 (much smaller "idle decline" than others, but the idle does recover immediately, unlike with other cylinders)

Obviously, taking this to my previous shop is a non-starter. But I'm still in shock that I could go from having a strong, recently rebuilt engine with very few miles on it to a junk engine that seems to be running 4.5 cylinders.

There's a Napa Service place down the street I will have to take a chance on. This appears above my pay grade.

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63 Plymouth Valiant V200 Convertible.
225, HEI, Super Six with 38/38 Weber, Electric Fans, Scarebird discs, FirmFeel front swaybar.

Make sure to ask them to check the exhaust/muffler for blockage or restriction. This is my initial bet - that the old place goofed the exhaust. If they check the engine, have them do compression tests on all cylinders (engine warm) AND give you those numbers for each cylinder so people on this site can try to help more.

Lou

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988

If this were my car, I'd back off the valve adjustment (make 'em all loose) and see if compression/fire magically returns to the dead cylinders—and I'd get my money back from that pathetic excuse for a shop. They'd get one chance to voluntarily give it back, then I'd go dispute the charge with my credit card issuer. There is no universe in which taking in a car for a coolant flush, a muffler, a transmission fluid change, and a transmission mount change results in any suddenly-dead cylinders unless somebody at that shop touched something they weren't meant to touch.

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一期一会
Too many people who were born on third base actually believe they've hit a triple.

Fully agree.

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Home of Slant6-powered fun machines since 1988