Yesterday I started putting the 55 to sleep for the winter and getting the snowmobiles out. The car ran good when I last drove it a couple weeks ago, but today it was pretty bad, so I took the plugs out to check their condition, the center two on the drivers side and the outside two on the passenger side were oily and the other four were nice and tan. Any significant info in this or is it just a coincidence? I have a 272, 600 holley, points system. My highest compression was on the good cylinders. About three thousand miles on a rebuild. When is Columbus '09? Thanx, Gary

       

Gary, 55 Vicky, St. Germain, Wisconsin

 

Based on your description of the cylinders being affected, this sounds to be carburetor related.  Suggest you work the idle mixture screws and see if one of them is unresponsive.  If so, just clean the carburetor but start with spraying carb cleaner into the air bleeds located within the choke horn first as this may save you the trouble of tearing the carburetor down.

 

On occasion, you can flush the carb internals by bringing up the rpms, choking the carb and going to full throttle simultaneously, and then just prior to the engine stalling out, open the choke back up and allow the engine to clear out.  What this operation does is put an extreme vacuum on the carburetor internals and literally sucks the passages clean within it.

Lorena, Texas (South of Waco)