Archbuilder/Chevymaher, I appreciate it . Definitely a good feeling to get it started up.
This week has been very bittersweet. On Sunday I was going over the engine taking compression, looking for any oil leaks, and then checked dipstick for oil levels. The oil was milky. In fact, it was white. I changed the oil, ran the engine again and the milk cam back. Moisture and milk in the valve covers, could not hold a good idle, and vacuum gauge was bouncing around like crazy. For certain something bad had happened in the rebuild... something very bad. So I read, read some more, and talked about the issue to everyone I knew who knows something about cars and engines.
I figured for sure that the idle issue and milky oil were interrelated. The oil issue could be anything from cracked block to not running long enough.
Today a friend of mine encouraged me to take on one issue at a time and focus on dialing in the idle. I spent about 1/2 with engine running with a vacuum gauge hooked up and was able to dial it in. He also told me to run a little higher idle at about 800 rpm since the cam had a bit of a lope - pretty mild though. The temp during this process was between 160 and 180F. I kept running and dialing until it ran for about 45 minutes. Checked the oil and zero milk.
It turns out I had two separate issues. The idle was related to just spending time with dialing in the carb. The milking oil appears to be associated with not running long enough to burn of natural condensation while testing in very humid air (North Carolina). When I for the 45 minutes i could see some steam vent off from the rocker covers and it finally went away. I guess it makes sense and I am completely relieved that the problem was only the amount of time the engine ran. I used a stethoscope on all the intake and exhaust ports and all pistons were the same sound with almost zero tick - valve train good. No hissing, no nothing.
I am absolutely elated!
Video is attached showing some of the diagnostics.
