1970 Ford Galaxie carburetor problems

IT should hold around 17 at an idle. There has to be a leak or weak compression.

yeah, its not a small leak either, and i know if it was the carb or intake the reading would just be low but steady, this was no where near steady

I can't remember what you actually found when you checked compression. Was it low? The way you described it, I would say you have some burnt valves or they aren't closing quickly enough ( maybe worn springs)

well i did something i really didn't want to do, i called my dad to take a look at it, he was a professional mechanic for 20+ years, he came over and looked at it, he did a few things and checked timing, then noticed the in line filter was clogged, we took it out, cleaned it (broke the glass on accident so had to get a new one) and tried to start it, there was no gas getting to it, so we pulled the dip stick and it caught fire, so we both determined that the fuel pump was going bad and then finally went out, which would explain all of it, going to replace everything and see if things work

What caught fire?

the oil, the fuel pump went completely out and gas poured into the oil, so we put a lighter to the dipstick to do a quick test, and the oil/gas mixture that was on the end of the dipstick caught on fire, therefore, fuel pump, just sent the radiator off to get a hold in it fixed, and when it's back i'll tweak a few things and it will be ready to go (hopefully)

let me know how things go.

well it's starting much better now, but still misfiring allot, i did a vacuum test to see and the vacuum was very low and staggering (roughly at around 5 psi) so i tried adjusting the carb. Nothing, well i did another compression test. just to see, and i've found 1=120 2=110 3=105 4=110 5=115 6=110 7=0 8=0 my guess is a blown head gasket, any idea?

Wow... 7 and 8 are at 0 psi? It sounds like you have a stuck valve or something like that. If it was a head gasket, you would still have some compression.

true, but i redid the valves and still nothing, i checked the compression 3 times and all three came up the same, i really don't want to have to rebuild the engine, and the oil isn't milky or anything, right now i'm not sure

oh yeah and after i redid the valves i noticed that the carb had a major backfire coming out of it, so you're probably right on the stuck valves

Let me know what you find.

still nothing, i put some head gasket/block repair in the radiator to see what it would do just for the hell of it, and nothing so far

I never had any luck with that stuff. If you have 0psi in those cylinders, there is something major wrong.

yeah, i figured I might as well try it, hell it was 7 bucks at autozone, but right now i'm thinking it's 2 stuck exhaust valves

I agree. I feel is a stuck open valve. Otherwise, you would show at least some compression.

Have you removed the valve covers to see if any of the valves appear stuck open?

yeah i removed the valve covers and it didn't look like any where, but just for extra measures i tightened down each and every rocker arm again, making sure each cylinder was at TDC, and i noticed something, the manual said to torque them down to 18-20 and when i did i noticed that some of the push rods wouldn't move when torqued down that far, but most others would, the cylinders with the highest compression had no trouble torquing and still being able to turn, but the 7 and 8 cylinder and 3 wouldn't budge even the slightest when torqued down, so i backed them off until they were able to move, i ran the car for a little bit and it did a hell of allot better, but i removed the valve cover again and noticed that the nuts had started to come off, meaning that they weren't tight enough, however they were the tightest they could be and still have the push rods turn, so it got me thinking that maybe the valves are the problem, but its not the valves causing the problem, what if it is the lifters and they just got stuck, so i cranked the engine with the covers off and well what do you know 3 valves were staying down

That's what I thought. Tell me this, is it the valves that are staying down by themselves or is the lifter not releasing so they can close?

well from what i can tell they don't move at all, the arms don't rock, the spring doesn't compress, nothing

Can you see the push rods moving? You have to have stuck open valves for there to be no compression. If, however, they are closed and there is no movement from the push rods (which go to the lifters) either you have a cam that is bad (lobes are gone) or the lifters are completely collapsed. If that was the case, they were collapsed, you would have heard them making noise when the engine was running.

well i wasn't able to hear a ticking noise because the car wasn't able to run long enough plus the engine is extremely loud and drowns out all other noises, however the push rods were not moving, so i took off the intake manifold and checked the lifters i suspected were bad, and they were, 3 were collapsed, and now it has new lifters, it got to cold to tweak the engine, but i was able to start it and it ran great except for the carb needs to be adjusted

So it's running okay other than the carb adjustment?

yup