I am confused. The whole vale keeper thing only happens at high revs, not while turning the engine over by hand.

I am thinking that the real problem is valves stuck shut and valves stuck open. The usual culprit in that scenario is gum caused by running an engine on old gas. I have several times seen/heard of engines that ran OK out of storage, but the next morning there were massive valve problems "out of the blue" Can think of a 56 Patty, a 51 300, and a Gravely lawn tractor with similar tales---and many more.

You will need a cam and lifters and a careful check of all pushrods now. And, I'm pretty sure a careful cleaning of valves and guides.

Agree with all of the above, and especially highlight the little tab on the shifter arm Howard mentions that serves as a stop for the reverse position to prevent overtravel. If bent or rotated out of position you can easily overtravel reverse which would make it very sluggish to engage.

Here is what I love about points. My high mileage 58 Champion started getting skippy as I ran her up in 2nd and would sometimes miss a little on a hill. But all in all, not bad. Had never looked in the distributor because of the always easy starting.

Decided to have a look today and discovered:
Points almost worn away on the arm side.
Cam dry and the advance sticking.
Condenser so old the lead was brittle.
Insulation falling off the lead to the points.
And a host of non-electric illnesses including a dead vacuum advance.
And it still ran and performed OK for a big car with a really small engine.

The Pertonix I had in my 51 with 288 is now sealed in a plastic bag on the shelf. I will be happy to sell it to you at a great discount.

It takes a definite amount of time for the pressures in the Ultra to bleed down as the car comes to a stop. In normal stopping on the road, there is plenty of time for them to do that. Applying the brakes with the car on jackstands probably does not give the governor sufficient time to exhaust the pressure that controls the direct shift. This will especially be so with the engine idling at 800 as you will have to brake fairly hard to get the wheels to stop. Set it back to 500 tops.

I'm guessing you did not notice this while driving the car? With an 800 idle speed you will get a bucking downshift as you brake to a stop.

Relax a minute. Chances are the car does not "know" it is not level--it only checks the position of the wheels, not the position of the floor.

Turn the leveler on, then have a friend who has eaten too much R?sti sit on the rear fender. If it comes up, turn the leveler back off and deal with the tires as you wish.

If the leveler does not come on, then try some of the other recommendations you see here. Left to myself in this situation, i would leave the leveler turned off, and with a short wire raise the rear of the car by grounding the small terminal of the upper solenoid mounted on the rear face of the driver's inner fender. Operate it only enough to get the jack under the frame. As long as the car is still going up as you operate it, the unit has not overtraveled. The instant you see the motion is slowing stop at once.

Flying to Germany tomorrow and can bring a fresh Ficken rebuilt '56 wiper motor to there and post it to Norway. Pm me.

Thanks so very much for posting those. Perhaps they can find their way into the archive.

Was greatly pleased to see that the straight eight was still taking some trophies home in 54. Consumer Reports did say the 53 Clipper with overdrive was "excessively powered". Wonder how to find more details of those races.

Now if you will excuse me, I feel a need to take my 54 Clipper Super for a vicarious victory lap.

Found it. Grease cap for most cars except the heavy iron prewars and 11" brake postwars is Napa 730-2409.

If the timing was OK when it last ran, it is still OK. If you want to advance it a hair, you can loosen the hold-down bolt and turn the dist a couple of degrees clockwise.

Backfiring through the carb only happens if the timing is WAY off, or when the fuel mixture is too lean.

A lot of these cars have been heavily diddled with by the unknowing in the past leaving all kinds of non-standard conditions. I assure you Grandpa hopped in that thing and drove it to work every day. Mine sit for weeks at a time and I usually don't even look under the hood before I turn the key and drive them out of the garage. Yours can be that way too.

As far as that backfiring through the carb goes, when you push it all the way to the floor, it opens the choke back up as a remedy if the car were to be flooded. Lets just skip that whole deal since you are working under the hood by yourself. You can operate the starter by touching a little wire from the pos battery post to the little terminal on the top of the starter.

Make sure your choke has snapped shut on the carb, and maybe give it a little drink. Turn on the key, hold the throttle about half open with your hand and then use your jumper to operate the starter.

Right now there are way to many variables in play. This thing is really not any more complicated than 2 old Ford tractors engines set in a row.