My brother has my Grandmothers 57 Ford Fairlane. It's been in the family since it first rolled out of the show room in 57. It is up to a whopping 54,000 miles. It really was a little old ladies car. The engine has never been apart or had anything done to it at all except tune ups.
As you can tell by the mileage, it sits a lot - gets driven 5 or 6 times a year to shows or a Sunday cruise and that's it.
Recently it has developed what sounds like noisy lifters and worse, it's blowing a lot of smoke. No rod knocks, just top end noise.
It's a 292 Y Block.
My first thoughts are to pull the valve covers and adjust the lifters/lash - never been done to the car. Couple things on this: Are they solid lifters and wasn't adjusting the valve lash on cars from this era done every few years a part of a tune up anyway? I am not yet real concerned about the lifters.
Smoke: Could it be sticky valves or out of time valves caused by lifters being way out of whack? Could it be some frozen rings from sitting to much? Perhaps the valve seals are just shot?  I am not sure how to approach as the only engines I have ever had apart were Pontiacs and scrubys from the 60's and 70's.  This is a different animal.
Right now my plan is to:
1. Ask you guys for your thoughts
2. Adjust the valves/lifters
3. Take it on the highway and open it up for a few runs - maybe clear some crap out of the valve train
4. If still smoking, try the old Marvel Mystery oil trick while holding it at a high idle and trickling the Marvel down the carb.
5. Maybe do a compression check across all cylinders after that to see if it has some bad rings?
6. If compression varies, would it do any good to pull the plugs and spray a heavy dose of WD40 or some other lube in, let it sit for a week to see if it loosens any frozen rings???? Reaching here....
This car has NEVER EVER been beat at all. My Grandmother literally took it to Church, the market, the golf course and the weekly bridge games with her friends. My brother has babied it for the past 30 years. I would not think, based on this, that anything drastic should be wrong at all with this engine.
Love to hear your thoughts guys - thanks,

Brian