304 Rebuild : Q&A

Ok... new to the forum, new to rebuilds, owned my CJ for about 2.5 yrs. I will not go through the entire story, because it IS a long one, but rather try to remedy the issue I am dealing with today.

Block was machined & bored .040, new everything back in May (shop had the Jeep for 6mo prior, never finished, so I took her back to finish myself). I've had troubles getting everything right and just whn I thought we were all good (with exception to some minor tuning) my Edelbrock 1406 goes nuts on me. Well, really, just a stuck float. However, that stuck float left me stranded one morning. I left for work (mind you, I haven't even gone through a full tank of gas) and she ups and stalls a few streets away. Will not start back up. Tow her home, and start troubleshooting. Get good spark, get good fuel & try again. She starts, but Very Rough and shuts down. Won't idle. So I try again, she starts & I give her gas... SMOKE! Only from right side (can't tell if white or blue... look the same to me). Pull out my guages and perform pressure test. 2, 4, 6 all have 135-140... 8 has 250!! When I releave the pressure on the guage, gas shoots from the valve. So I pull the dip stick & oil smells like gas. I pull all the plugs and make certain there is no more gas. Change the oil and filter, change plugs, fix carb, fix fduel lines, put it all back together... running good... but now I have a little smoke on the right side on start up and at WOT (short amount). Could I have wasted a ring? Should I continue to break in the engine and wait to see if ther all seat properly? Pulled spark plugs after idleing the engine for 30 min two nights in a row & #6 & 8 have some oil deposits, but compression looks good. Any other tests I can run?

Thank you in advance for reading/replying to my post.

Regards,

CJ Lewis from Houston, Texas

Welcome to Bulltear!

It generally takes 500-1000 miles to really seat a new set of rings. It may take a little longer if you gas rinsed the cylinder walls. I'd just run it for at least 1000, and see what happens. A little smoke at WOT and decel isn;t an issue on an engine that's still being broken in.

Reading the plugs after idling only tells you if the idle circuits are rich or lean. To read actual main jetting, you need to run 10-20 miles on the highway, then turn it off and read the plugs before it idles even 1 minute.

Bob
tufcj

NICE!

I will take that advice to heart!

Believe me... I've been putting everything I have into this motor and I would have kicked myself in the head if I wasted something.

Thanks!!