I have recently redone the top end of my 2F. I put in a new MAF RV grind camshaft and new lifters, had the head ported and polished, milled down for more compression, new Weber 38, tri y headers,desmoged air rail removed...bolts put in its place, block off plates for EGR and heat exchanger for the intake manifold, new head gasket, valve cover gasket, rear main seal and new DUI distributor. The compression was at spec with a slight leak on the #2 cylinder due to a faulty head gasket before the tear down. I have everything back together everything torqued to spec. I am having trouble getting the engine to turn over. It will fire on what sounds like one cylinder and that is it.
I tried getting a compression reading and it wont get past 10!:mad: That Can't be good. It is a cold reading, so maybe it isn't accurate. I have reset to TDC several times, thinking that the timing might be off, or that I had the distributor set on TDC #6 instead of #1. The other thing that I changed was the plugs. I tried some new Bosch+2's I got some others that I am going to try tomorrow. I asked Woody, but he said he's a V8 man and to try on hereand some of the guys on his site.
Any tips are greatly appreciated.

Sounds to me like your dist is 180 degrees off. Are you sure you put your dist in with the #1 piston at TDC? :skull:

yea I tried that. I set it at TDC and took out the distributor out and rotated the rotor 180, and tried to start it I got a flame out of the carb on that one.

I also set it at TDC and took out the plugs on #1 and #6 and used my compression tester to put in some compressed air from my tank to see if the #1 or #6 was on the exhaust stroke.

Not sure, but did you prime your lifters bfore you put them in?? They need to be filled in order to actuate the puch rods. Right??? Are you valve adjusted right??? Just thinking out loud.(read putting foot in mouth, maybe.):confused:

Good luck

-D

The lifters are solid and do not require any priming to operate. a nice coating of assembly lube or power punch would help for initial start but you are past that point.
I ran into serious valve spring binding problems when I installed a Downey torquer cam in my 2F. It would run but it beat the hell out of the new OEM springs very fast.
I noticed while turning it over by hand that it did not feel right a slight bind at what would be the top of each stroke, but it would turn past it. Well it turns out that was the coil bind problem.
In your case with the low compresion reading and the milled head you may be looking for a valve that kissed a piston.
Try rolling the motor around by hand so the valves of #1 are both closed and hook your air tank to the cylinder and listen for air escaping though exhaust or intake. Repeat this for each cylinder.
P.S. have all of the plugs removed so you can also detect air lose to adjoining cylinders. if the valves are closed and air is escaping you have a problem.
Good Luck

Lifters dont need primed because they are solid.
One thing that might get you and one of those things that can slip right past the thought process is this: A Really bad seal on your manifolds will make it run like that. The first time I took the manifolds off and put them back on I didnt torque the manifold bolts down right, when it did start, it sounded like it was on one cylinder. Having a header makes improper torque and tighting sequences worse. What I did was put studs in the other 4 (along with the original 2) larger bolt holes in the head (used bolts on the far outside holes) and then went with the manual on tightening sequence, tighted follwing the squence at 25ftlb, started over at 30ftlb, then 35, then 40. The manual says 35ftlb, but I dont think that is enough for a header, I always used 40ftlb. I have done this many times and it works very well. I ordered new studs, washers and nuts from $OR so I didnt have to go try to pick though the lowes or HD hardware section. Good luck, let me know if this is what it is.

Ricko.

I tried getting a compression reading and it wont get past 10!

On ALL six cylinders, all you get is a max reading of 10 psi?

DOUBLE CHECK with another compression gauge... then start thinking about the camshaft to crank timing.

Worse joke we pulled on a buddy, who was doing a first time engine rebuild... well, we stuffed a patato up his tail pipe while the engine was out. OK, we had too much :beer: and it seemed funny at the time. Of course he pulled a marathon session, got the motor back in, and couldn't get it started and really started to second guess everything... stopped by on Saturday to help him drop the motor in, to find it was in pieces! Oh, sh!t.... quietly pulled out the patato, treated him to a new gasket set... and got everyone back over there to get the motor in pronto.... engine ran like a champ! You haven't had any drunken friends over recently, have you?

Tom :usa:

I am going to try the exhaust and intake manifold bolts first. It sounds like that could be it. When I isntalled the new cam I made sure that the allignment dots meshed for the #6 cylinder,so I am certain that the cam and crank are in sinc. I also made sure that there were no drunks around my truck too, so that one is out as well. I will let you know what the outcome is when I finish the tightening sequence and run some compressed air in the cylinders. Oh yea my compression tester is brand new so that's not the problem either.

I've seen brand new gauges crap out, right from the box. But I seriously doubt thats your problem.
Any luck on finding the problem?:skull: