The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area General Truck Talk only firing on 1 & 2

I just purchased a 53 5 window, wouldn't run so i replaced plugs, wires all the good stuff and finally got it going but it's only running on 1 & 2 I've triple checked everything any ideas ?

Stuck Valves?

Try a compression check. And you might also want to pull the valve cover and verify that you don't have stuck valves on the other cylinders. This, of course would affect the compression check.

Greetings from Taylorsville.

Thanks for the input I will check it out the vavle and see whats up.

Is the distributor cap properly seated? if you have any debris on edge it may not seat. Are the wires pushed all the way into distribuor cap. If you put the spark plug wires on3,4,5,6 close to a ground do they have spark?(arcing)If there's no spark at wire ends start there and work back to distributor. If you do have spark start checking compression etc.

Well I followed your advice and pulled the valve cover and there are 5 bent pushrods. So now I will dig in a little deeper and see what I can find. Or look for for a 235 and replace While I've got the chance. Anyone got any good leads on one ??

Bummer on the bent valves. But that would cause it to misfire on those cylinders, that's for sure.

Check out the Truck Parts For Sale and the Truck Parts Wanted forums. There's a 2235 motor with 3 speed trans for sale in there right now. I just glanced at it, so I don't know where it's located, but that's a good starting point.

I don't have any motors for sale at the moment...and all of my stuff would be newer that your 53...otherwise I'd be happy if I could help out a fellow Bolter. All I have as spares right now is a 406 V8 in a basket and a seized-up 454.

Good luck with it.

I'd guess either the valves were adjusted way too tight or the lifters stuck in the bore.

I think that you said bent pushrods, did you not? There have been lots of posts about this. They are usually caused by stuck valves on a motor that has been sitting or running on old gas. Several people have straightened them out, freed up the valves , reassembled them and adjusted thevalves. The results are usually quite good.

I think I will try straighting the pushrods and check the the lifters out and re-adjust the vavles see if I can get it running while I'm searching of a 235 at least I'll beable to drive it.

Before you put those push rods back in make sure the valves are free. Otherwise you will have the same result.

canman,

Just curious(I'm a little new to diagnosing), how can you tell that only 1 and 2 are firing? Even though the valves are bent, they should ALL get spark, right? Just not compression. Maybe you checked the compression AND spark on all cylinders.

Rance

Well i straightened the pushrods they wern't bent to bad but i got them straight as possible and i made sure the vavles were freed up put the pushrods back in and just snugged up the the adjusting nut and turned it over to make sure all the vavles were were opening and they seem to be working all right. Now I'll adjust them to the correct clearance while I'm waiting for my gaskets to here today. One question won't the vavle lash be a little different on the ones that were bent because there not perfectly straight ? Maybe I should just replace them. The way I found out it was only firing on 1 & 2 was when it did start it was missing really bad so when I was checking to see if all the wires were on good I pulled them off every cylinder and it made no difference on any of them except 1 & 2 it actually ran on one cylinder i was amazed.

Give it a shot with the straightened pushrods,and if it sounds pretty good,then you might want to replace the ones you fixed. A little Marvel Mystery Oil (maybe a pint)in the crankcase and a dab (a capful or two per fill up)in the gas tank will make it run happier too.

Where can I get some of this Marvel Mystery Oil ?