The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop black, sooty sparkplugs.........???

I finally finished the lien sale on my '59 3100 so I worked today getting her started. It was in storage since 1987 and I have no idea the last time it ran. I cleaned up the points and changed oil, put in new battery and new gas and had her running in no time at all. Had lots of valve noise that eventually cleared and now runs pretty quiet but a bit rough. later I pulled the plugs and they are dry but covered with black powdery soot. Question...should I do a complete tune up (points, plugs, timing, adjust carb, maybe new coil)??? Everything I am reading on sparkplugs points in this direction. Will hotter plugs and new (hotter) coil help the plugs fire cleaner???

Carl

ooops.......forgot to mention, the engine is a 235. What is the correct plug, correct plug gap and point gap and dwell?

thanks in advance.

If there was old gas in the tank when you added fresh gas & started it you may be in for trouble. The old gas is pretty much varnish. The fresh gas will mix with the varnish and take it to your intake valves. When you shut the engine off the varnish will stick to the valve stems and possibly stick them shut. If you now have stuck valves, the next time you crank the engine you will either bend pushrods or break rocker arms.

I made that same mistake on my 38 & had to replace two pushrods because they bent. The safest thing to do now (if there was old gas in the tank) is pull the gas tank. Clean & coat the inside of it. Pull the head and R&R the valves, giving them a good cleaning and lapping.

I know that isn't what you wanted to hear but it's something you need to be aware of. If the gas tank had been drained before storage you probably won't have a problem. Good luck.

Tiny.....the tank was empty when I put gas in and fired the truck up. As I said it was running rough so I did a tuneup and changed fuel filter. The filter was full of rusty gas. I drained the gas (about 5 gallons) back out of the tank and it was all brown (rust). My question....what do I do to clean the tank and how do I deal with the rust issue???? Do I scrap the tank and get a new one??

Anybody have any ideas???

Carl

If new tanks are available you can certainly go that route. If the tank is only rusty inside & not rusted through to the point of being structurally unsound it can be cleaned & coated as I noted. About all of the parts vendors offer clean & coat kits that use phosphoric acid as the cleaner and their choice of coating as the liner. I personally prefer using Muratic acid (the same stuff they put in swimming pools) as the cleaner and RedKote as the liner. The pros & cons and how to do this process have been covered here a lot. If you use the search function at the top of the page you'll get a ton of info you can use.

As for your tune-up questions. It sounds like you need to kit the carb. You can probably find the detailed tune-up info here but I'd strongly suggest you invest in a shop manual. You can get them through most of the parts vendors and on eBay. Good luck.

before you go spending money drive it and see what it needs if not drivable get so don't worry about plugs yet...doc