Tow in , crank no start

[Witsend]

My wife's brother has his 93 year old Dad's 88 Mercury tracer towed over to me a few months after I replaced the distributor and 5 years after I had replaced the Tbelt and water pump. Car cranks and has spark , but plugs are all flooded out and has no compression . I ground coil wire and crank it with distributor cap off and the rotor turns when cranking engine without interruption, but when put to TDC it no longer lines up with cylinder 1 or 4 . I figure my timing belt job of 5 years ago must have jumped time. I take the timing covers off and the belt is perfect, still snug and the marks line up fine, but see a funky bulge in the metal of the pulley . Cam Bolt still tight as hell. Take off pulley and see the cam moved almost 90 degrees. Ancient Oil pretty much had turned to Globulous black molasses in the bottom and but cleaner looking stuff showing on dip stick.

[Witsend]

Stranger Sh@t has happened.

Well , found an old obsolete new pulley on E bay for $28 and had my brother in law order it because I'm surely not going to find for a rare old Turd Bird of this age in the Bone yard. Was slow enough to mess with the old one and hammer the damaged pulley flat and do a little weld and grind it flat, run to hardware store got a stronger bolt with a wider flange and reinstalled the pulley with cam peg still intact and lined up the pulley, tightened bolt. Cleaned plugs , new oil and filter and still crank no start , plugs are wet again and Cylinders 3 and 4 have only 30-40 psi. squirt oil in cylinders again and bring each cylinder to TDC on compression stroke and 3 and 4 have high leakage from exhaust valves . I call my brother inlaw the bad news and to cancel the pulley. I dry the plugs , put them back in and try one last time and it sounds like it wants to start and I hold the accelerator down and get it started and keep it going a minute and it sounds like it's hitting on all4, but have too turn it off because te water pump belt is not on. Put the pulley and belt on and its running fine like all compression returned , and it wasn't ring seal leakage. It was valve leakage . Dislodged carbon maybe keeping valves from seating or something. Who knows. Changed the oil and filter again and got more tar snakes out and running ok again , LOL

[dodge90]

your right, who knows, you see something new everyday. one to keep in the books for a good story.