I did a bit of work on the 1919 yesterday.
1. Cleaned the Dayco timer.
I made sure the plungers were free and wiped out the excess oil.
2. Removed, cleaned, inspected and gapped the spark plugs.
The front two were black and the back two looked a perfect grey/brown.
The front might be running a bit rich but I think it is oil.
The gap was OK at 0.035.
I don’t like the look of the two front plugs but don’t intend to pull the motor apart to fix it.
Now that I think about it I might try different gaps on the front plugs!
3. Removed the coils, cleaned the contacts in the coil box and marveled at how good they looked a year after being rebuilt by Ron Patterson.
4. Adjusted the low band.
This is the thing that started the whole project because on Saturday it didn’t seem to lock up when I pressed the peddle hard.
I took the cover off the transmission – found a little bit of band fiber in the screen and no metal on the magnet.
I then loosen the lock nut on the outside and turned the adjusting bolt until the band locked on the drum.
Then I loosed it about a third of a turn so everything was free without any drag.
I was surprised to see that it was only about a quarter turn tighter than when I started.
There was still plenty of spring travel left.
I also tightened the brake band a little.
5. Tires were again fun – A few weeks ago I put a new tube in the spare and it now holds air, but it leaked from 55 PSI to 40 PSI.
The two front tires (from 1964) are holding 55 psi over many weeks but the rears are slowly leaking like the spare.
When I went to put air in the right rear I saw that the valve stem had elephantitus and was beginning to blow up like a little balloon so I swapped it with the spare.
Later in the day I went to the auto store and got new tire valves.
I hope it fixes the slow leak problems on the rear tires and if I don’t get new tires I’ll have to change another tube.
PS – Everyone that suggested I let the sun heat the 47 year old tires to soften them were right on!
About the plugs: are you running a hot air pipe? A compression test will give you an indication of oil useage if 1 & 2 are low and it's the rings.
No hot air pipe --
I got the stuff to do a compression check but am hesitant because I'm afraid that it will tell me that I have more work to do.
Check for a leak at the intake manifold. A very common problem with results like you refer to.