Rich, Admittedly I haven't had the time to really analyze your situation, but here is a similar scenario I was in a while back. Maybe something might jump out at you. I will be around from 6-10 tonight if you want to give me a ring. You said, "I suspect my engine is turning too slowly to really get any oil pressure"... Don't discount that lack of oil pressure. "Truth comes knocking at the door, and you say, 'Go away! I'm looking for the truth,' and so it goes away. Puzzling." -Robert Pirsig. In other words, the car will tell you exactly what is wrong, if you just find the right way to listen. Zen maintenance -always- works. Think about it -- when was the last time you saw a Buddhist monk broken down on the side of the road? =) -Dave When in doubt, "Zen" it out!!! =) ************* Hi All, I've been having some problems getting the 361 motor in my '59 DeSoto Firesweep Seville started. BJ Pultanovich came up to help me out today, and now I've got him totally stumped as well. By all means that we can determine, the engine SHOULD fire. The problem is it just doesn't. To give some background, I had replaced the points, plugs, condensor, cap, coil, and rotor, and was satisfied I'm getting a good spark. The compression had been pretty low (around 60 PSI on all cylinders, but after two weeks of soaking in Marvel Mystery Oil, compression jumped to around 90-110 on all cylinders. To test for bad rings, I dumped about a quarter quart of ATF down the carb throat, and the compression jumped up to around 160-180 PSI on the cylinders I checked. The engine is pretty gooey... so I'm guessing that sludgy rings are causing the low compression. A test of the #6 cylinder revealed 50 PSI on cranking, but with all the other plugs in, and with a closed throttle and choke. The previous owner assured me it had been running fine when parked, and I have no reason to doubt him. In fact, the last inspection sticker (Oct. 1973) shows that the car had 48,982 miles when inspected, and the clock only shows an additional 13 miles at 48,995 now. A lot of people suggested that the old fuel was bad, and/or carb problems. Actually, the old fuel was pretty bad (it was pumped when Nixon was in office) but that's not the problem. The car, at present, is pumping from a gas can full of fresh clean fuel. The gas tank is not even on the car. The fuel pump is functioning correctly, and the carb is getting plenty of fuel. Both carb and pump were just rebuilt. Tried dribbling gas down the carb throat too. But let's eliminate fuel completely from the scenario -- by using plenty of ether starting fluid. Still, the car won't "kick over" and fire. To remove the exhaust from the equation, I disconnected the muffler. The heat riser is free, and I have verified that air is coming out of the open exhaust pretty freely and regularly. So that leaves two major possibilites, first that there is something still wrong with the ignition, and second is that the compression is too low. We tried replacing points, plugs, condensor, cap, coil (including a brand new super-coil), and rotor, and even tried replacing the points cam from a spare distributor. We rearranged the spark plug wires to every possible combination. When arranged in such a way as that the timing is advanced by one or two terminals, the car will kick back a bit on each cylinder. Eight kicks per revolution -- but it's so far advanced that it stalls the cranking a bit. One would think then, that the wires are in the correct order, there is a spark with each cylinder's compression stroke, and the distributor is indeed firing. There is much blow-by coming out of the valve covers when the engine kicks in this fashion. Little smokes comes from the exhaust. Rotating the distributor back to the 'correct' position yields nothing. You would think it would at least chug a little and help the motor turn over. That is, unless the power produced by each stroke is substantially less than the starter's torque in the forward direction. A few others have suggested towing the vehicle up to around 35 MPH while in D or 2 range, where the trans will actually turn the engine over.... basically, the old push-start. That's appealing to me, but it would be a bit difficult in my current scenario. The car is in a garage in a city neighborhood with narrow streets. It's a long, flat, dead-end street, but there isn't much wiggle room if the car was to buck or lurch, so I'm going to have to count that one out in my situation, but it sounds like a good idea for others who are facing the same problem -- if you live in the country. Another good-sounding approach was to disconnect the starter cable at the relay, and hook up another battery in series to give a 24volt crank for short periods of time. (12 volts to the car, but 24 to the starter -- connecting the starter relay to - on a second battery and + directly to the starter cable. If you draw it out, you'll see what I mean) We tried that too. no luck. It turned over faster, yes, but still would not fire up. [DON'T DO ON A DMC!!!!!] Now that leaves only the compression as the culprit, by my logic. Should 90-110 PSI be enough to start the car? Anyone who has been down the same road, what is the lowest compression you've seen a car start with? Connecting a engine-top-grounded spark plug outside the engine, directly to the coil gave 8 very good blue sparks per rev. Connecting the same plug to the distributor #1 lead gave one good (but somewhat weaker) blue spark per rev. Previously, when I had verified this with a timing light, I was able to see that it was firing at the correct time. Other notes: - Continuously checking the plugs revealed no carbon, oil, or wetness. - We're sure it's not 180-out as we checked for TDC by compression and verified it to the timing mark. We even verified that the #8 cylinder was compressing when it should on the cap. - We bypassed the ballast resistor. We replaced the ballast resistor. We jumpered the ballast resistor. - Disassembled the distributor. Breaker plate is free. Shaft is free with very little play. Weights are free. Vac. advance is working. - The engine has never been disassembled. - Connecting the coil directly to the #1 cylinder (thus 8 cranks per rev) yielded one through-the-carb backfire per rev. - BJ brought an inferno-on-wheels kerosene heater that had the garage cranked up to around 85 degrees -- so warm in fact that the engine was no longer cold to the touch. But it doesn't start at 15, 35, 50, or 70 degrees either. - Engine rotation on cranking: clockwise. Distributor rotation: counter clockwise. Firing order 1-8-4-3-6-5-7-2. So now two of us are completely stumped. Any guesses out there as to what might still be the problem? ***************************** To summarize the answers to the majority of questions on my non-starting problem: - The valves are working. If they were stuck, there would be far less compression, and no vacuum. I also had the valve covers off and verified that each valve did in fact operate. - Verified spark a few different ways. The lead is okay. Tried four coils. Tried multiple sets of points. Tried about six new and used condensors as well. The engine is sparking, as is verified by the kick-back on advanced ignition timing. That is a definite. The firing order has been verified 100 different ways and that is also definitely correct. There definitely IS spark. - Grounds are good - If the damper has slipped (and thus the timing mark), it would not make much of a difference. What I mean by this, is that even if there was no timing mark at all, I could still verify TDC manually (which we did) and set the plug wires accordingly. Rotating the distributor would thus correct for any variances in perception and the car would at least fire, which it currently doesn't. - Point gap / spark plug gaps are correct. Verified that often. - Brand new battery. Just replaced the one from October. - Plugs are not fouled. Plugs are correct type (Tried Autolite A75 which is the replacement for A42, and Champion J12Y. Even cleaned a set of original A42 Autolite plugs and found no difference. - Starter cranks just fine. But that variable was removed when we cranked it at 24 volts -- cranked twice as fast but still no firing. - The 90-110 PSI compression stays consistent, and is consistent across the cylinders. - Oil has been changed. Pistons are carbony, but not terrible. - The spark plug wires are new also. Also tried other wires. - The rotor is still turning just fine. Makes a decent spark when viewing an externally grounded plug. Rotor is not spinning or slipping when I hold it during cranking - I checked the line between the pump and carb; cleaned with carb cleaner. New fuel filter too. I'm positive carb is getting enough gas. - Tried gas down the carb. The carb is getting gas; the accelerator pumps work fine. Should start on the ether anyway though. John McCann, Mackey Nelson and Dave Grove all suggested something similar (in Dave's words): "It sounds for all the world like the cam timing is off - like the timing chained has slipped a few notches. There is an easy way to check the cam timing - remove the left valve cover, and watch the "valve action" as the engine is turned over with the starter. Pay attention and you will see that the intake valve starts to open immediately (and sometimes even before) as the exhaust valve closes. The idea is to "catch" the intake and exhaust valves at the exact point where they are BOTH open the same amount. the intake will be opening, and the exhaust will be closing, and at some point, they will (obviously) be "open" the same amount. This is the "center" (so to speak) of "overlap". Now, at this point in engine rotation (the center of overlap), the timing mark (on the damper) will be (ideally) exactly on TDC. Anything within 5 degrees of TDC is OK. Considering that there are about 14 crankshaft degrees for every link of the timing chain, it is easy to spot when the chain has jumped even one notch, and even an engine that's off one notch can be coaxed to life, so if this is your problem, the above test will show that things are *way* off." Thus, with this test, the pointer would be at 0 degrees (TDC) but 180 degrees out when the valves are in the position described above. So at this point, there are three possibilities as far as I see it. 1) Although we see a good spark, that spark is not good. 2) The valve timing is off 3) The compression is not high enough to start the car (is my tester bad?) To test #1, I can try a known-good distributor. To test #2 I will try the test above. To test #3 I will be using this stuff called "OMC Carbon Guard", GM's "Upper Engine Cleaner" and/or "Yamaha Ring Free" that are sold for outboard marine engines that are reported to do an absolutely incredible job of freeing carbon and sludge on rings. (It's actually the same stuff Chevron calls "Techron" and adds to their fuel, but in concentrate form.) After the cleaning, there should be some further increase in compression. I will also put 90 weight oil in every other cylinder (by firing order) and try starting then. If compression is indeed the problem, then the engine should run at least briefly until a) the oil burns off, or b) the plugs foul from the oil. Other than these tests, I'm still stumped. -Dave ******************* [FROM ANOTHER PERSON] Hi, Dave: I forwarded your post to my own mechanic, with my observation that it seemed odd, to me, that you had changed all the ignition parts other than the spark plug wires themselves, although your subsequent "spark-checks" seemed to indicate that there was fire in the wires, no matter how old. Anyway, here's the brief reply I had from my mechanic: "This one does seem like a challenge. The puzzling thing to me is that the spark plugs were changed and continuously checked throughout this work and found to be dry!! I would expect with all this cranking that they would be flooded with gasoline or fouled with oil from soaking the cylinders. Engine compression at 100 psi is enough to fire." Dave, my experiences with my own cars would also make me cautious about firing up a car that had had a LOT of cranking, because all that unburned gas should be washing past the rings (especially where your rings might not be sealing perfectly) and finding its way into your oil pan. Once it does fire up, there is a risk that your oil will be thinned out or, even worse, so gassy as to go kaboomb when the engine temp gets up high enough. No doubt you'll worry about changing the oil, to get the gas out, after you get it to run for more than 60 seconds. Let us know what happens next, since you will likely receive so many different suggestions, based on what worked on other people's cars, that they will seem like a whole school of red herrings, ONCE you know what is actually wrong with YOUR car. It might not be any one thing, though. The only car that has really stumped my mechanic was my 77 Chrysler Town & Country, with a 440, and a mere 16,000 miles on it. He worked at the dealership in those years and knows those Mopars inside out. We went through a lot of "maybe it's this -- fixed that -- no better" on that car, until we even got the intake and heads off, re-did the heads, and still no improvement. Eventually, it did run great, but there was no one single thing that we could point to as the culprit. Went through two new carbs, new timing chain & gears, all electrical stuff, re-done heads, every blessed thing checked and double checked, including the valves and pistons when the heads were off, until it started running fine. Dunno whether it was one single mystery or the cumulative effect of a bunch of non-optimal stuff. A few weeks later, we went for a road test, because I still didn't think it was right on. Discovered a new, defective, spark plug, so only running on 7 cylinders. Now, that 440 is REALLY great. But what a painful (and expensive) journey. Keep us posted, will ya? Dick Woodside 13 cars and no two problems ever the same cause ******************* Hi All, I went out and checked some more things on the DeSoto tonight. The valve timing is right on. 0 degrees on the balancer is right between when the exhaust closes and the intake opens. So that isn't the problem. I did wash down the cylinders with a can of that GM Top Cylinder Cleaner, and then blew a tablespoon of 90-weight oil into each cylinder. I replaced the plugs, gave it a shot of ether, then hit the starter. To my surprise, it actually fired. Sent up a pretty nasty cloud of smoke as well. After that, it now fires on one cylinder while cranking, and occasionally as many as three or four. So it seems the culprit is still poor compression. I guess 90-110 PSI either isn't enough to start my particular engine, or my compression tester is wrong. It must be one of the two. So for a couple of hours, I alternated taking out one bank of plugs, cleaning off the oil, spurting fresh 90-weight into the cylinders, and cranking. Consistently the same results. At least one cylinder fires each time. I think my next step will be to get more of that Top Cylinder Cleaner, and keep zapping the compression for a few more days. These decarbonizers are made to be poured into a running, warm engine, so I guess the results will naturally be a bit slower in my particular use of the products. I'll also pick up a new compression gauge, and see if the cylinders are actually building in compression. My goal for now is simply to get the engine running to help blow out all the carbon, goo, and gunk. After the engine is actually running, I'll try decarbonizing and such to build the compression to a decent level. If I still can't get compression after that, it looks like a ring job or bore will be needed. I'd like to thank everyone for the help I've received so far, and I promise I'll keep y'all posted on how things go from here. -Dave *********** It is slowly starting to come back. Have one cylinder firing all the time, and one that does sometimes. I was talking to a local boat shop today to get some more Carbon Guard or Ring Free. They mentioned something that I had actually considered -- "washing" the cylinders and engine. Their cleaning setup for marine engines is surprisingly like what I was planning to try. You know the adapters that screw in the spark plug hole with an air line to hold valves in place while changing the springs? Take one of those and attach it with some rubber fuel injection hose to a high-pressure electric fuel pump (in my case, a spare Bosch pump from my DeLorean). Move the piston to BDC before the compression stroke, and install the adapter. Attach a fuel filter to the intake end of the pump, and immerse it in the solvent (which will be kerosene and '5-Minute Motor Flush'). Drain the oil, and remove the plug. Jam/thread a hose into the drain hole, leading back to the wash basin. Hooking up the pump to the battery (5 amps) will start the fluid flow. It flows 25 GPH at 80 PSI. As such, it will thin out and wash all carbon, sludge, and goo in the combustion chamber down past each of the rings in sequence, finally draining into the pan and then back into the basin for filtering and reuse. I'm figuring 20-30 minutes per cylinder (thus 12 gallons or so) will wash anything out that's going to come out. A lot more will come out after it's running and has the intense heat. Oh, and no, I won't forget to lube up the cylinders with plenty of 90-weight before I try to start her up! The boat shop uses something quite similar -- an adapted saltwater bilge pump and a drain pan for a sump. They use straight kerosene, and also flush through the valve covers as well to get rid of the junk. Not a bad idea, and I'll probably pull the distributor and "wash" that area as well. That's going to be the last thing I try before pulling the engine. I'll probably have it tanked, and do new bearings all around. Basic rebuild -- just a hone if the cylinders are okay, and new rings, replace worn components, maybe new cam and lifters. -Dave **************** [FROM ANOTHER PERSON] Well, one of the other "mature" mechanics at the shop I go to has some thoughts for Dave to get his DeSoto going. This fellow has worked in Africa, where you MAKE things work whether or not there are replacement parts available, and then in England (where cars hardly ever work, even with plenty of replacement parts) and then many decades on this side of the pond. He's seen a lot in his time. His thoughts are quoted below: "Dave has almost got every angle covered - mechanical wise I mean. Reading from what elimination process he has taken, the vehicle should start. It appears he has covered almost every thing he could think of (more than I would have taken anyway), except one thing which I think he has overlooked. I have personally experienced this very similar problem in my life time - it turned out that the exhaust system got plugged. I was in Africa at the time, and the wasps had built a nest of mud, completely choking the exhaust system. I would suggest to Dave that he remove the exhaust pipes from the manifold and try and start the engine, before going further with any more diagnoses. Reading from the report of what he has done, I don't see that the exhaust system was removed at all - it's worth a try. I don't think it's the valve timing, because one can verify if the valves have jumped, in any case, one or two notches fore or aft, the engine should still start, but will not run smooth. Dave's DeSoto has spark and the carburetor pump is pumping fuel - unless the fuel is stale. The compression is okay, so I can only guess the problem is in the exhaust system." While I haven't worked on such a car, I can say that I've seen it happen, in a different way. On a Brand-X car club tour I was running, our parade left the starting area, but without our Club President, who was supposed to be driving as tail-gunner. His car wouldn't start, so the penultimate guy stayed behind to help. Many cell phone calls later, they reported having gotten the car to start and run, but only after clearing all the sod and dirt out of the tail pipe, from where our illustrious Club President had backed into a nicely landscaped berm alongside the parking lot. Once that "core sample" was removed from the pipe, away she went! Dick Woodside **************** That's a good suggestion, but I guess I was -very- thorough. I disconnected the muffler at the Y pipe, and taped a plastic garbage bag over it. Cranking blew it up in no time flat, so the exhaust seems to be free enough. -Dave **************** [FROM ANOTHER PERSON] Try cleaning, with sandpaper, the Distributor Hold Down Clamp, and the Block where it sits. Poor Ground, means Erratic Spark. Happened to me when I painted my block. Lee J Barmakian **************** Hi All, Okay, so you know I was going to attempt to "wash" the cylinders. That went just fine. I could see immediately the effect, as what often began as Motor Flush pouring straight through the cylinders would eventually slow down to a trickle as the rings got cleaned and began to seal better. Compression on my gauge went up from 90-110 PSI to between 135 and 150 PSI on all cylinders -- that's a straight 40 PSI boost! I had the valve covers off to spot the bottom of the compression stroke, which would be just after the intake valve closed. Something struck me as a bit odd there, in that the rockers would all "settle" back flat after I stopped cranking. Hmmm... back to that later. Anyway, I replaced the valve covers and flushed the cleaner through there and the distributor valley as well. So much gunk came out, that it was constantly clogging the fuel filters on my solvent pump. I washed it as long as I could, and when I finally poured out the solvent from the bucket, there was close to a half-gallon of sludge down at the bottom. WOW. I added about a tablespoon of STP with an oil can and clear plastic hose all around the bore of the cylinders, and spun the engine over a few times to ensure that they had lubrication for startup. I installed the spark plugs, connected the wires, added a gallon of oil + two cans of STP and cranked her over. The oil light was bothering me a bit, as heavy cranking still wasn't building up the pressure enough to turn the light out. I figured it would build up after the STP-thickened oil had time to circulate a bit. I added a bit of starting fluid and cranked. This time, I could hear each cylinder firing, but there still wasn't quite enough "oomph" to keep the engine going. It was finally turning well enough to spin-out the starter, but just couldn't keep going. I kept this up for about three hours... figuring eventually it would catch enough to run, but no luck. The oil pressure light still wasn't going out, so I pulled the sender and cleaned it too. When cranking, -no- oil came out through the sender's hole. Ah ha. Problem. I drained the fresh oil back out into a clean container, and was surprised to see it was barely even dirty. I then hooked up my solvent pump again, this time to the oil pressure sender hole. I removed the oil filter, and tons of goop started pouring out. Turning over the filter, I noticed it too was full of goop. (Backflushing like this should also loosen and flush out all of the crud on the pickup screen and oil pump -- an added bonus). Quickly I put two + two together. The rockers... the rockers were "settling". They weren't getting enough oil. If they don't get the oil, they don't pump up. If they don't pump up, they don't have enough lift. If they don't have enough lift, they can pull a good vacuum (but not enough volume!), and also choke the mixture with unexhausted burned fuel, which would tend to blow by the partially opened exhaust valve into the crankcase. Okay, so now things were making sense. If the oil pressure comes up, things should be good. I replaced the oil filter with a new one, and cranked. A lot better pressure than before, but still not great. Getting somewhere. Car still would not start, but was getting stronger. I pulled the oil pump check valve which was also really goopy, cleaned it in kerosene, and replaced it. I cranked the engine until the pressure came up (about three cranks). The pressure would stay up for about 30 seconds -- also a good sign. I repeated this cycle for about 5 minutes to make sure oil was getting flushed into the entire system, and then added a shot of starter fluid. The car fired, ran briefly, backfired through the carb, then quit. That's the first time that car's made noise since Nixon was President. By now, I started getting excited. I pumped the gas a bit, and cranked it again. It caught, but stumbled, so I kept gooseing the throttle and it stayed running. Smoke started pouring off the oily exhaust manifolds, and finally the engine smoothed out, so I let off the gas. PERFECT idle. No vibrations, no misfires, nothing -- she absolutely purred. And she stayed purring. I adjusted the timing a bit, and found a small but very distinct "sweet spot", and locked it down. It sounds like a brand new car. The car now starts and runs like it was hot, even in a 30 degree garage. I ran it through the gears, and the transmission seems decent for now at least. In short, it looks like I'm now ready to go for a little test cruise as soon as I put the gas tank back on. A BIG THANKS to everyone who helped to solve the problem! I'll keep y'all posted on the results of the test cruise if I do it today. -Dave *************************** 
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