Aloha, now my complete story, may be helpful and maybe someone can connect the dot's that we're missing. My wife's '54 bel air/235's timing gear went,lot's of damage, anyway off to rebuild shop, I install all the same stuff except of course plugs,points,condensor. install dist. as per manual (rotor facing DOWN), cyl #1 top dead compression stroke, points just opening. Same carb. Now this all sat for about 8 months. the only thing different I did was install a temporary elect. fuel pump with regulator and gage. But man it would not start! backfiring up thru the carb and just being very disagreeable with the whole affair. Well it finally starts but I'm busier than a 14 year old cabin boy on a greek freighter trying to keep it running and hoping that after it warms up it'll calm down! No way, it just wouldn't run. I then changed the distributer with a known good out of another engine, thinking maybe the original got damaged when the timing gear went, nope, no change. I took apart the carb thinking maybe it got gummed up from sitting, also, my wife rebuilt this carb herself over 9 years ago with very little help so I thought I'd find something wrong,nope, looked great in fact. the only part I didn't pay attention to was the throttle body. changed fuel filter, adjusted fuel pressure, 3 lbs at idle!! I'm going mad at this point! Thats when I changed out the carb to see what was up and it improved a lot, but still ran slightly rough. finally re-adjusted the valves, loosened them, but ran very poorly, rough. Thats when I called Marvin, good ol boy mechanic, and towed the flippin car in. well, the valves were still way too tight, (apparently for a powerglide trans after removing pushrod lash there are NO additional turns)anyway and thats when we replaced the carb with a rebuild. He thinks 1 of the lifters is still sticky so we'll re-adjust at a couple hundred miles, she's driving it daily again. The carb change combined with the valve adjust did it. Now 1 more anecdote, my '54 1/2 ton was my 1st stovebolt and I ASSUMED it had solid lifters 'cause i also ASSUMED it was the original engine so i adjusted them while running to the whatever thousanths and it ran great. but every once in awhile it would start clacking away making all kinds of lifter noise, but it was still running good. sometimes at start-up, some-times on the freeway, unpredictable and it would go away everytime I pulled into a mechanic's shop or friends house, I'd check the valve adjust and it checked out good. Never fixed it, sold the truck, it went to England, explained the problem to the new owner that has become a great friend and bestman at my wedding, and I've visited the truck 4 times now, but he has sold it and we think it may be back here in the US, but thats another story,,,,well anyway he ordered a wayne valve cover set and while installing it quess what he found? the engine was a '54, but it was out of a car and it had hydraulic lifters!!!! I never knew so I adjusted them to solid specs and it did run good, real good, he even ran it for a couple years before the discovery!! SO, could your engine be out of a car that had a powerglide trans and therefore be hydraulic? Thanks for reading thru this I know it's long but it's all true. Hope someone can help, I need a beer, ALOOOHA!!!
