361 Woes

Well, I dove into her yesterday and heres what I found:

Check compression on all cylinders. All were good except for #4, which showed no compression. Big red flag came up immediately. Definately not a ring. Sounded to me like some kind of valvetrain failure.

I proceeded to take the manifold off and once its off, its clear what is wrong; number 4's intake valve has a severely pretzeled push rod. Damn. It gave me no signs that it was that, no backfiring through the carb, no knocking, nothing!! I pulled the lifter and checked it. It was not able to be freely pushed in, so I pulled it apart, drained the oil and put it back together. The lifter was able to be collapsed after that. I am thinking some crap in the oil got into the oiling hole of the lifter and prevented it from collapsing. I am search of a new pushrod to put back in a try to see if it will run well again. I am thinking it will, as the cam lobes look find and the motor looked very clean interior wise.

There was no sign of broken valve seals anywhere, no debris...clean...

If it runs well again, I am thinking I will replace all lifters and pushrods, as I have a four barrel intake to put on.

I am guessing that the smoke was coming as a result of that intake valve being held shut. I wondered why it smelt more like fuel than oil.

I think it will run ok again and the smoking will disappear when I put a new pushrod in....