Hello,

I have actually a couple of questions. I don't know much about cars, so my questions may seem simple. First, I decided to rebuild the carb on my `55 Fairlane 272 (2bbl Holley 2100) for a couple of reasons: 1) there was gas leaking from the throttle body and bowl assembly gaskets, so I figured it was time to change those; 2) I changed the plugs and wires and saw that most of the plugs were fouled black (a couple were grey), so I figured I needed to re-jet with smaller jets.

To my surprise I found that the jets that were in the carb were #53 and #51, which is way smaller than the shop manual calls for (#57 in both). The carb was not in terrible shape, there was some buildup in the bowl but that was pretty much it. I did notice that the fuel pump (in the carb) linkage was set on the rich setting, not the standard setting. I also noticed that the float was not very precisely set. I worked on it for about an hour last night and got it about as close as I'm going to. The drop that it was set to was huge. I am starting to thing the person who rebuilt this thing knew about as much as me! My question is, how could the plugs be fouled black with jets that were too small. Would the pump setting be enough to account for that? I have a set of #57 jets coming, as well as a set of #56 (just in case the 57's are too big), but when I saw the size of the jets that were in there it kind of blew me away.

My second question: I also noticed oil leaking from the pass side valve cover so I pulled it off and swapped out. I don't have a torque wrench sensitive enough to read 2.5 pounds (factory setting) so I finger tightened it. Turns out even that was too much. Started getting small amounts of white smoke from under the cover. It is okay to use RTV sealing along with the gasket, or does that buy more trouble down the road than it's worth.

Thanks!