I am so excited!!!  The swagger is back into my 5.0!  Remember when I told you that when the #7 rocker arm broke, but the #8 piston pushrod was bent?  Well, we performed a compression check, every piston was within 3 lbs. psi except # 8 piston which was down over 20 lbs. psi.

We pulled the manifold and then the valve cover and tapped on both the

#8 intake and exhaust valves with a wooden mallet.  Guess what, afterwards, the compression on #8 jumped back up to exactly the same as the other pistons!  Now they were all the same!  He also found a cracked spark plug on that same side.  No wonder my engine was running like crap!

His surmisal is a cause and effect situation, the rocker stud snapped in half on #7, leaving the rocker arm to flop around at the inside rear of the valve cover.  The loose rocker bent the #8 push rod but left something foreign – perhaps (gasket material???) to become lodged in the valves servicing #8 piston, and the effect was that the valve(s) couldn’t close properly.  By snapping the valves with the wooden mallet, this foreign material was dislodged, and the compression jumped immediately back up to within 3 lbs. psi of the other 7 pistons.

Just to give you an idea of how the 5.0 was running before, it averaged 7.8 mpg before the fix with the bad plug and stuck valve(s).

Afterwards I drove the car last night to a little resort town up in the mountains, Heber Utah, and in 100 miles I used 4.8 gallons of gas which is 20.8 mpg averaging 70 mph.
I think the engine runs and sounds exactly like it did before the broken stud mishap!

Thanks for being so understanding!

Please let me know and Thank-You for all your understanding throughout this ordeal!!!

Dan

5/14/11