Time to rebuild?
I readjusted the valves yesterday to 0.010" intake, 0.020" exhaust with the engine warm and running. By the end of the adjustment the 0.011" and 0.022" feelers were a very tight fight and the 0.010" and 0.020" feelers would slide with some noticeable friction but not too much. I did see all of the rockers dribbling out oil. All of them needed tightening, mostly about 1/8 turn each. #6 exhaust was the one making the noise; it sure is nice to drive without hearing the valve noise all the time (although now I have to listen to my noisy/leaking power steering pump and an intermittent squeaky gurgle--is that the water pump?).
While the valve cover was off I cleaned out the baffles with a piece of coat hanger, a toothbrush and some paper towels. As Dan predicted, there wasn't nearly enough gunk in there to prevent airflow.
The warm idle is a little rough now, but I have yet to set the idle mixture carefully. There's now a pretty regular "lope" about 2.5 times per second idling in Drive (~150 lopes per minute: one every 4th engine revolution?). Next up: set idle mixture, redo compression test, check again for fumes blowing out crankcase breather.
I readjusted the valves yesterday to 0.010" intake, 0.020" exhaust with the engine warm and running. By the end of the adjustment the 0.011" and 0.022" feelers were a very tight fight and the 0.010" and 0.020" feelers would slide with some noticeable friction but not too much. I did see all of the rockers dribbling out oil. All of them needed tightening, mostly about 1/8 turn each. #6 exhaust was the one making the noise; it sure is nice to drive without hearing the valve noise all the time (although now I have to listen to my noisy/leaking power steering pump and an intermittent squeaky gurgle--is that the water pump?).
While the valve cover was off I cleaned out the baffles with a piece of coat hanger, a toothbrush and some paper towels. As Dan predicted, there wasn't nearly enough gunk in there to prevent airflow.
The warm idle is a little rough now, but I have yet to set the idle mixture carefully. There's now a pretty regular "lope" about 2.5 times per second idling in Drive (~150 lopes per minute: one every 4th engine revolution?). Next up: set idle mixture, redo compression test, check again for fumes blowing out crankcase breather.