Recent content by 54mainline

Yes. This is my first time rebuilding an engine like this, so I was very careful about the orientation of the gasket.

The engine was a mess before the rebuild so it’s hard to know what was wrong. I had extremely low compression and I blamed it on the valves but the gaskets were probably bad too. The valves, springs, and seats were all replaced and the block and heads were checked for cracks before machining...

I’ve got a 1954 Mainline with a 239 Yblock. Over the winter, I had the heads and deck machined. Yesterday, I finished the assembly, started her up and let her run for about 15 seconds. Afterwards, I noticed coolant weeping out of the head gasket on the drivers side above the oil filter...

This is really helpful. Thanks

I don’t know much about the history of this car, so it’s impossible for me to know how long it sat. It has relatively low miles (65k) and 70 years old, so it’s probably sat for many years without being driven at some point in its life.

Thanks for the reply. I figured I had a problem with the valves on #2 given the shaking vacuum and the low compression, but I wasn’t sure if the low compression on the other cylinders pointed to something worse. Now I have to figure out how to adjust the rocket arms. I’ve never done that before...

I picked up a 54 Mainline with a 239 Yblock last year. Everything but the car’s interior is completely stock. I’ve been having trouble starting it when the engine is warm so I decided to start poking around under the hood thinking it needed a tune up. I replaced the (filthy) spark plugs and...