Having just celebrated 50 years with my original 1946 and we were planning to attend the Southern Stovebolters meet in Townsend, TN my 216 has apparently puked! It was lacked power and I perceived the sound from the engine was a ping and the timing and points might need some attention. After spending yesterday in my garage, the noise was a slight popping gurgle from the carburator that would not diminish with timing adjustment. Vacuum advance working, vacuum readings bouncing from 14-16 lbs., checked plugs and wires, and found #2 and #3 missing. Compression test was good on the other four but #2 and #3 was zero with just a little bounce while cranking. I had recently done a valve lash adjustment and thought that maybe that was the cause with a possible valves remaining open. The valves all appeared to be operational, so I backed off the adjustments, sprayed some PB Blaster and Marvel Mystery oil on the valve shafts to hopefully free up a possible stuck valves. I even ran about a half pint of Marvel through the carburetor at higher rpm hoping to free up stuck valves, creating quite the smoke cloud for the neighbors.
I then introduced some oil into the offending cylinders for a wet compression test to verify that the rings are good and the offender is probably a blown head gasket. I had previously noted an offending trail of antifreeze going into the garage after topping off the radiator and just wrote that off to overflow.
My next dilemma will be taking the manifolds and head off when I am not suppose to lift more than 10 pounds due to service-connected back issues, it will be time to rent a cherry picker.
Looks like the '46 will miss it's birthday party at Townsend, but Linda and I will still meet our Bolter friends.
