Hey! I'm new here, my wife and I recently acquired a 1953 3100 with (as far as I can tell...) the original motor. We love it, we think it looks awesome (It needs some body, paint, and trim TLC, but overall it's cool.) and my wife and I need it to be relatively road worthy. It's drivable as is, but it has a miss, and possibly a faint knock. The motor mounts are pretty deteriorated, so it rocks a lot when it misses, but it shouldn't miss like it does.
Here's what I know:
From the previous owner's receipts, I know it was rebuilt in 2013, and from what I can read on the machine shop's scribbled receipt, they bored out the old Babbitt main bearings and put new ones in, reground the crank and cam, replace pistons, rings, rod bearings, main bearings, cam bearings, timing gears, oil pump and (of course) gaskets all around. It also had a 12v conversion.
After this and some other work to get it drivable, the previous owner's teenage son drove it as a daily for several years until he went to college, then it sat (except for "grocery store trips" 1-2 times a month to keep it running) for 3, then I bought it.
They replaced the carb at least twice, and I replaced it myself after I got it, thinking that may have been the cause. I have also changed plugs, wires, points, condenser, coil, and rotor button (probably unnecessary, but they're like $5). The cap looked fine and I couldn't find it locally anyway. Plugs gapped to .035, point was gapped to .016, but I brought them in to .013, as the dwell angle was only about 28 degrees, .013 brought it to (a still low) 33 degrees. Re-timed the ignition to 5 degrees advanced using "static timing" settings described
here and also adjusted the valve lash back to spec.
No changes how it runs. I will also add it misses when it's running faster than idle as well. I also noticed that the idle gets REALLY rough when I adjust the idle speed below 1000 rpm, and wants to die.
I know it needs a choke cable, as the one on it broke when I installed the last carb (it's on its way.)
Click here for the video of the engine running. at about 2:40, I move to the camera to the exhaust (ignore the cracked muffler and the tail pipe piece dangling from the frame! We're getting there.)
I appreciate any help you guys can offer, I've read about several other things that can cause this, and while I don't WANT bad news, but I'm willing to hear it if it means I can get it fixed.
Thanks in advance!