Recently I had a friend here in Vegas that has a 55 Ford Victoria with a 35,000 mile rebuilt 292 out of a 57. He drives the car ocassionally and puts on like 3000-5000 miles @ year. Anyway what happened was that in August when he put the car away and parked it until recently just tried to start it. When the car tried to start, it turned over as normal and ran terribly. He said it sounded like it was missing terribly. He pulled the valve covers and saw that a lot of the rockers were either bent or off of the pushrods. Now the car hadn't been run hot just driven normally before being put away. He said after another additional sets of pushrods and re-adjusting the rockers twice @ .019 they did it a 2nd time as well, and not always the same cylinders. He finally called a Thunderbird place called the "Birds Nest' and they told him that it had to do with deposits forming up past the valve on the valve guides and stems from todays modern fuels and to add lead aditive to his fuel. The additive would help some they said but the best bet was to take off the heads and make the valve guide clearance wider so that the deposits wouldn't be as likely to occur, but to still use the lead additive as well. This motor by the way has hardened seats when rebuilt for unleaded fuel. Has anybody ever heard of such an occurance before?? I sure haven't
Michael
MichaelSandy Valley, NV