My first thought was plastic dissolved, because it only manifested as an acute problem on the stems of the intake valves. Only there! The carb bowl did have a "dirty toilet" look where whateveritwas evaporated right at the top, but whateveritwas stayed solvent, and new gas would dissolve the old goo, and so the inside of the carb never got all that dirty. The fuel:air mist gooped the valve stems really bad. See the photos. The intake runners and manifold were typically clean. I think the intake valve was relatively hot (and I now know the fuel charge mixture is cool, around 100 - 150 degrees -- I measured it) and the gasoline droplets evaporated upon hitting the "hot" valve, leaving the tarry stuff behind. That's totally consistent with my half-fast chromatography. Once whateveritwas got all the way into the combustion chamber, it burned off. Also consistent with plastic (hydrocarbons) dissolved in the fuel. I don't recall the piston tops being excessively crusty. I did clean 'em off when I repopped the head. I think Joe F. said that this car sat for some years up against the side of someone's house in Northern Calif. Maybe kids put plastic toys or whatever into the gas tank, and they dissolved. I think it wasn't simply gas-gone-bad, I think I know enough chemistry to believe that the tarry stuff is a big molecule, and there should be nothing in gasoline that will spontaneously generate large enough molecules. I dunno, I could be totally wrong but gas shouldn't "turn goopy". -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://list.amc-list.com/pipermail/amc-list-amc-list.com/attachments/20090620/bed3cb69/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ AMC-list mailing list AMC-list@xxxxxxxxxxxx http://list.amc-list.com/listinfo.cgi/amc-list-amc-list.com