85 1 Ton ?

[vbm]

Hello everyone. I don't post much but I do read the forums from time to time. My truck is an 85 silverado 1 ton with a 454, turbo 400, 14 bolt rear end and a dana 60 front diff. I don't drive it often but I do fire it up 2 or 3 times a week to keep everything working right. Well tonight I cranked it up and was letting it warm up and after awhile it started to miss and smoke started to come out of the left exhaust pipe. Is it possible that I sucked a valve just idling? Anyone have any idea what happened? I could sure use some help. Thanks.

[N2TRUX]

Well first things first. Welcome to the forum VBM. It looks like you have a really clean truck.

It sounds like a cylinder went dead. The question is why did it go dead. It could be a bad dist cap, plug wire, spark plug, cam, lifter, valve, push rod, etc. .


I would start by determining what cylinder is dead. It sounds like you already know it was the left side. Try pulling one plug wire at a time from that side and start it up. See if it gets worse or stays the same.

Once you find the dead cylinder you can start trying to determine why it's dead.

See how far that takes you and we can go from there.

[vbm]

Thanks for the reply N2TRUX. I'll give your suggestions a try. Thanks again.

[vbm]

Well, I pulled the plugs on the left bank and #1 was fouled solid. Cleaned plug and reinstalled ... still missed. Next I did a compression check on the bad cylinder and the one next to it. Both had 150lbs. and didn't leak down. That told me that the valves and rings were good. Tried a plug wire from my other truck ... still missed. Changed HEI cap and rotor and #1 plug. Runs great. I suspect that the plug went bad but I'm really not sure. As long as it runs good I'm a happy camper ... lol . Thanks for the ideas N2.

[SanitysBane]

Good to hear its working like a top, and welcome to the board.