Some poking around on the '58, pt. 2

While I was in an adventurous mood, I decided to check the oil. I pulled the dipstick, and the oil was low, suspiciously thin, and it had an odd smell. Time to drain the oil and see what's going on in there. The drain plug must be under that goop somewhere. As I have said before, I would rather see a nice wet oily underside than a crusty rusty underbody (do not think of that sentence in any way other than how it relates to old cars).

There we go, the plug is out and "it" is draining nicely. You can see the oil filter is the older canister style with the replaceable element instead of the one piece spin-on style. The PO said this was a 1964 motor, the oil filter style supports this claim (perhaps the motor and front seat came from the same car). I said "it" instead of oil, because the fluid was not all oil. There was a very strong gasoline smell to it. It was very thin in viscosity, as if it was half gas, half oil. Something is up.

Now the previous owner was all paranoid about what does indeed sound like a sticky lifter tapping in the motor. Not a big deal to me. First of all, it's not a fatal problem, and I could have the motor apart and swap the lifter in a couple of hours if I wanted to.

Anyway, it is possible that he added kerosene, or some other solvent to the oil in an effort to free up the lifter. Which of course did not work anyway.

A second possibility is that the fuel pump is leaking internally into the engine. A pushrod from inside the motor activates the fuel pump, so there is a passage where it could leak. An uncommon malady, but possible. That would explain why there seems to be so much gas in the oil, and it would also explain why the car came with almost a whole new fuel system; the PO was chasing a fuel delivery problem caused by the pump itself, which he had not yet replaced.

Fuel pumps are easy to change, so I'll get a new one just in case that's it.

HERE'S what you use to clean out a motor of unknown previous use, misuse, and abuse. I filled the motor with 4 quarts of new oil, and 1 quart of automatic transmission fluid. Yes, really. I took the photo in mid-pour just to prove it. ATF has a very high detergent component, it will literally scour the inside of an engine clean. Well, cleaner. I have done this on other used cars and it works great. Do this a couple of times, changing the oil early, like at 1000 mile intervals, and you will not believe the gunk and junk that comes out of the pan each time.

DO NOT pour ATF into the intake of the motor as I heard one person insist he does, unless you wish to cause a huge smokescreen in the neighborhood, and actually add to the deposits in the cylinder head. This goes in with the oil, not the gas.

I'm going to get an adapter to change the oil filter over to the later, easier, and more common spin-on style as well. I'll report back on these fixes after I actually get some parts and get fixing.