1964 LINCOLN RESTORATION PROJECT

A COUPLE OF DAYS later, a mechanic friend of mine went to investigate, armed with a strobe light. He found that the timing was off, so he set that. He was able to hook up the exhaust using only my hand tools in the garage. But, most important, he hooked up the vacuum-advance on the distributor. The tune-up joint had neglected to do so, apparently thinking it wouldn't matter! Because it wasn't advancing properly, the engine was running as much as 10 degrees off timing at higher RPMs! For those of you not mechanically inclined, that matters. A lot.

He said it was running fine, but that I should adjust the valves: I needed to investigate why one of the cylinders didn't seem to be firing properly....