Yes that is the plug where oil was leaking. There arent any metal specs on the ring probably just a bad picture. Ill have more pics up shortly of another plug from a different cylinder.
OK just making sure its clear, that cylinder def has some oil leakage into it. Either from valve seals (my guess) or blow by. Almost had to be loose plug to seap oil like that out as well, only other thing I could think hapenning like that would be a cracked head right there and I think thats doubtful The other plug you posted a picture kinda hard to see but my first response would be its running hot that ground strap looks discolored all the way down to base ring and "color" only on about half the ring. Looks hot and lean to me from what I can see. I gotta go for the night sure one of these other guys will help you out from here. Have a good night.
The car is still running pretty badly. It stumbles and seems like it misfires when under load, and occasionally you can hear what sounds to be a misfire at idle.
Why did you remove the heads to do a valve seal change?!? That's leaving yourself open to all sorts of unnecessary expense and mechanical issues. Next time, replace the seals right on the engine. The more you take apart, the more chance something might not go back together just right and give a problem. What worries me the most is the pressurized dipstick. That is NEVER good, and could come from improper head gasket reinstall, among other things when you remove the heads. If you did the seals on the car, you may have never had an issue like this because the head gaskets were never disturbed... nor would the distributor, intake gaskets, etc so on...
I would say the main reason we pulled the heads was of how absolutely disgusting the valve train was. They were covered in grime. And also I am trying to learn and gain experience working on engines so my friend was trying to teach me more as we were pulling the heads. I really doubt head gaskets were installed incorrectly, there was no old gasket remaining whatsoever. We used fel pro gaskets and the coolant passages were in the rear on both sides and head bolts were torqued to spec. Is there anything we missed or could have done wrong?
No it didnt. Which is where im confused, I was under the impression that blowing from dipstick was from blowby, not something to do with the heads. Or can it be caused by something to do with the heads?
Well, if it didn't have blowby before, which is how I take it now that you confirmed it, then it could have issues with one of the new head gaskets leaking compression into the crankcase.
Is there any way I can confirm that the head gaskets are leaking? What could have gone wrong in the gasket installation to cause it to leak? Just for future reference.
Good luck! I hope you find it is a simple something. Fwiw: Head torquing is done in stages, in sequence, and retorquing after the car has been run is sometimes recommended depending on who you talk too. Certainly couldn't hurt, unless the gasket is already degraded.
Well I have an update here. First the hose was leaking slightly around the pcv causing a small vacuum leak, a clamp was put on which fixed that. Also the carb was way out of tune, tuned it up and now it runs much better. The issue with the smoke out of the dipstick was all from the dipstick not seating securely, even the slightest pressure would cause smoke to come out. A new dipstick with an o-ring was put in which fits securely, now there is no smoke what so ever. Although there might be a small amount of blow by it is not a concerning amount. All is good now and the Comet is running smoooooth
