Problem getting a 1979 GMC 350 running

[Rusty Nail]

Yeah.
You made shure it stayed cozy, right?

 

[WP29P4A]

Yeah.
You made shure it stayed cozy, right?

Vehicles stored inside have less of a chance of acquiring storage damage from rodents and weather. If stored outside some effort to inspect the vehicle for nests and chewed wires would be logical before chasing down problems.

I see people frequently spend huge amounts of time chasing down electrical problems when the only issue is a bad ground or a handful of bad connections, makes sense to check the obvious before wasting a bunch of time chasing illusions.

 

[stewy4344]

It has always ran great with no issues. I was stored outdoors.
When i did the carb, i went through and did all the adjustments. I even tried a different carb. Same behavior.
I'll do a compression check on all the cylinders and see if anything jumps out.

 

[CatRacer]

Did you change the distributor before or after the problem began?
It sounds like you are off a tooth or more.
Have you put a timing light on it?

 

[stewy4344]

After. Im borrowing a light to take a look. Haven’t looked for the timing marks yet. Hope they are at 2 o’clock. Don’t know how it would get out of time though

 

[stewy4344]

It has always ran great. I did adjust all of the carb per spec.
it was outside.
I took the passenger side valve cover off and two of the rockers are loose (nuts are not loose) and one isnt on the valve. How would that happen

 

[Goldie Driver]

It has always ran great. I did adjust all of the carb per spec.
it was outside.
I took the passenger side valve cover off and two of the rockers are loose (nuts are not loose) and one isnt on the valve. How would that happen

LOL - I had a '79 Z28 I bought off the original owner for 1300 bux in '92. The AC still worked ...

At any rate, same issue - the valve stems had mushroomed and the rocker would walk right off of it.

So ...

I bought some push rod girdles , dremeled a bit on the head so they would fit, and used those to keep the pushrods in place and therefore the rockers in place on the valve stem.

Was it the correct fix ? Not in a million years !

Did it work ?

Yup.

 

[Bextreme04]

It has always ran great. I did adjust all of the carb per spec.
it was outside.
I took the passenger side valve cover off and two of the rockers are loose (nuts are not loose) and one isnt on the valve. How would that happen

Just an off hand thought... it sat for long enough that the lifters emptied out. When you first started it, you didn't prime the oil pump for two minutes like you should have and the lifters collapsed on start up, letting the pushrod or rocker slip off. Once it was off, that's all she wrote.

I suggest you get both valve covers off and run through adjusting all of the valves properly. Hopefully you haven't burnt one in the meantime.