Ballast... that was it.
One of my first lessons in Experience (circa 1970) was helping a friend install a T-bird engine (with a high compression oil pump)in his Edsel.
Fired up and ran 20 or 30 seconds then stopped.
After a search of all the likely culprits lasting hours and hours it turned out to be a fully twisted off dizzy shaft.
Replaced dizzy, fired up, ran 20 or thirty and snapped another one off. We were kids and the junk yard was close by
Replaced the dizzy, removed the engine pulled the pan, cleaned the tiny little piece of crud out of the oil pump and put it all back.
started it up, ran a min or two and snapped another one... we didn't clean the crud in the pick up screen good enough. a spec the size of a comma did the deed.
Finally got it going and took it for a spin.
He started bragging about how his 'new' engine and tranny were all done and before he could get another word out the rear end took a dump.
We walked away and never looked back.
