Rule one is to never give up. A lot of us here are older than dirt, and some rocks. Doesn't mean we can't enjoy our hobbys. I don't recall anyone paying me to grow up. Still, after two hip replacements, Dad can turn a quicker quarter mile than I can in the same car - - And he turns 80 shortly. Never underestimate old coots.
Back to the subject, great looking Chero Sean, hope that it comes together for you, on the upside just be glad that your dad wasn't hauling bricks in the bed, from the pics that I have seen and the archived posts that it have read you have done a fantastic job.... No 6 cylinder belongs in that beauty.
I was referring to myself joining the discussion late. Definitely prefer the green over a blue, but as my 73 is also green I'm probably biased. Lol
Finally found a few minutes where I didn't have storm damage to clean up, the wife wasn't around to bug me into doing something else, and it wasn't 100 degrees out (just 92), and was able to dink around with the engine. I got the driver side plugs changed (the hard side). None look too bad, just overly black. Did a compression check on 5-8 too -the middle two are a bitch, with the shock tower and all. 5 & 6 were 185, 7 was 190 and 8 was 200. Not great, but not horrible like when I found 0 in cylinder 1 on my trucks 5.0 the last time I dug out the gauge. I also found that one of the spring clamps holding on the distributor cap wasn't on the distributor cap. That could be 90% of my problem (not the oil smoke, but the rough running). Hopefully I can get to 1-4 next week.
The difference in the pressures is only about 8%, so it's in spec; I'll cross my fingers the others on bank 1 are just as stout, and that fresh plugs, a check of carb and ignition specs checking out, and a good romp up and down the nearest highway or interstate will clean that engine out, but good.
All 8 cylinders are between 185-200, I'm happy with that. #3 plug was a mess. I put new plugs in and took it for a drive. Seemed better, but still not right. I got on it a little and it still left a ton of smoke in its wake. I get home, hold it at 4,000 rpm for a few seconds, snap it to 5,000 and there's no smoke. I then hear this loud squealing which I tracked down to the PVC valve. When I pulled it out of the cover I noticed something weird, and not cool. There is a ton of vacuum in the engine, pulling into the valve cover. More than pulling into the intake. Only thing I can think of is bent pushrods or, gasp, wiped out cam. Any other ideas?
How would a wiped cam cause vacuum under the valve covers? Vacuum has to have a source, wondering if intake isn't cracked sucking oil from the top. A puzzler for certain, let us know what you find.
Shake the pcv that you pulled off, does it rattle like a marble. If not, replace it and continue on, you pinpointed the noise, start there.
Rule of thumb is that you don't operate on your own kid until you cover all the bases, in other words start small and work up.
Wiped cam would create less vacume, not more. I would search out someone with the equipment needed to do a smoke test. Very real possibility that the intake ports are not sealing good at the bottoms allowing the engine to suck oil vapor out of the lifter gallery. Could also explain the excess vacume inside the engine. Wasn't there to see your engine build so this is just an educated guess. More than once I have seen the same symptoms due to an intake manifold that is not machined exactly to match the angles formed between the heads and the top of the block. Shaving the heads or just a clean up cut on them can be enough to screw up the intake match. Same goes for decking the block. You remove metal from the block or head matching surfaces, you also have to remove metal from the intake , primarily the front and rear surfaces, enough so that the intake will sit correctly in the "V" formed by the heads and top of the block. If the intake gaskets can't be clamped securely to the head surfaces you get the symptoms you have. I made the mistake of not checking for this once, never again. Seen some damn good machine shops miss this too. Smoke test that engine. Edit = Do you also have a decent breather cap that allows enough air flow for the PCV to function ?
Ditto everything that Hillbilly just said. I did an FE rebuild a couple of years ago, and had to be paranoid on the intake fitment (on the FE, the intake forms part of the valve area, so the valve cover fits on both the head and the intake). On the same engine, I used a breather cap instead of a PCV valve. Since air wasn't being pulled from the crankcase, moisture built up, and caused the mechanical fuel pump to stop working. Put a new PCV valve in, and all my problems disappeared. Joseph
Yeah, gunk build up was common on the older FE's that only had a breather cap and a draft tube. I count a working PCV system as a big contributor to engine life and cleanliness. I make sure it is working on all my engines.