just purchased it. has alot of new parts. sounded like rattling/knocking was coming from right vavle cover cyl six. don't here it til u take off the engine cover. sounds like it is mising also at idle. give it gas its rough but smoothes out eventually and back to crap at idle. recently pulled vavle cover didn't notice/feel any thing loose. did sound like i heard pressure release when i stopped cranking the motor with coil wire pulled. pulled #6 plug, completely fouled. never seen anything like it. plugged crammed with light brown crap.. changed plug , but only runs slightly better. about 50% improvement. any thoughts?

 

Seeing as how you found a fouled plug, either that plug is not firing or there is a mechanical issue causing that plug to fail. How is the SP wire? Looking fine does not mean it is. Make sure it doesn't come close to touching another wire or anything grounded, and see how she runs. What is the condition of the contacts in the distributor? If they are aluminum contacts they do not last long. Pay the extra for the dist cap with the bronze.

Others here can help you more.

 

Why did you only pull plug #6, what about the other 5? They could be just as bad.

 

i checked 4 also it seemed fine, but then i gave up and figured the motor was shot. i have mixed feelings about it. i bought it as a beater work van and figured it had a lot of brand new parts, alt, started, battery, exhaust,all engine gaskets(including headgaskets) and engine computer that the parts are worth more than i paid for the van. but i kinda don't want to drive it til it dies when theres a chance its a simpler fix and it could last me a long time. oh buy the way, guy i bought it from said it burns oil and all he did was keep adding oil. did notice that after turning off , the oil sounded like water dropping back to the pan. that oil was black. i since changed the oil to 10w40s thetic blend with a quart of lucas additive.