'54 oily exhaust

[Matvey]

My '54 is blowing a large volume of oil drops out the exhaust and around the heat riser. Engine stalls when put in gear. Compression checks out OK. Visual inspection of removed head and head gasket reveals nothing wrong. Any idea what the problem is?

[James F.]

Re: '54 oily exhaust

P.J. Sounds like you have removed the head from the block. Were they still together, in addition to a compression text, I would have suggested having a leak down test preformed to determine whether the rings and valves were sealing or what wasn't sealing. From the point you are now, were it me, I would give the head a valve job, remove the pistons, check the bore size, either rehone if the bores are within tollerances or rebore and order oversize pistons. In either case I would use new rings (and probably not the fanciest, most expensive variety either). Basically a complete engine overhaul. Hope some of this helps.

[Chuck G.]

Re: '54 oily exhaust

I agree with Jim Frakes....at this point, it sounds like you've pulled the head. Oil can come only "up" through the rings or "down" through the valves or valve guides. A leak down test would have helped here. Another thought...was it really oil, or black "sooty" water laden exhaust. If that was the case, it could be that your carburetor diaphragms are "shot" and the car was running very rich, shooting black sooty water from the exhausts. If your plugs are gas fouled, you'll have the answer to this question. Hope this helps. Let us know what you discover. Chuck