71 C10 Project "Dangerous Dinosaur" Build Thread

[the hippie mechanic]

I started on the distributor and trying to get the straight six to run right above idle. I opened up the distributor with the intention of replacing the points but the points in there were practically brand new. I cleaned the contacts in the distributor cap and on the rotor, lubed the weights under the points, and buttoned everything back up. When I was adjusting the timing to see if that fixed the problem I notice a fuel leak above my fuel pump so I fixed that too. My vacuum advance didn't seem to be working right so I tried a different vacuum line and it worked better. I discovered a PO had stuffed a ball bearing in the vacuum line, and I removed it. It made the vacuum advance work better, but still not great so I replaced it. I replaced the wires going to and from the coil as well, which really made it idle better. One wire was very frayed and greasy and probably wasn't a very good conductor. I have a brand new vacuum advance, good timing, clean contacts and fuel flow and the motor is still struggling holding RPMs above idle, so I will be replacing valve seats or piston rings next. I did a compression test and he results came back 105, 105, 105, 100, 110, 105. I'm going to put a tablespoon of oil in one of the cylinders and see if the compression changes. I'm looking at redoing the rings or valves, or both. Any advice from people who have had to do this before, or anything else I could troubleshoot before ripping into the engine?

I decided to use the bumper without the parking light sockets and I'm making brackets to mount the parking lights on the bottom of the bumper. I also started on getting the windshield wiper motor to work, I replaced a blown fuse and checked to see if the motor will still turn. It does, so the problem should lie in a switch or wiring.