This exact same thing happened to me on a similarly cold day when I was
in high school in Missouri -- in fact, the car was even a '76 B! I'm
sorry to be the bearer of ill tidings, but in my case the engine had
broken a rod -- same cylinder as yours, in fact. If the piston is no
longer firing or moving, the spark plug could indeed be awash with oil.
Assuming that this is the problem, your engine is possibly rebuildable,
depending on the amount of damage the busted rod did inside -- no telling
till you take it apart.
How many miles on your car? Engine ever been rebuilt? My '76 had not
quite 80K on the original engine when it happened to me. This was in
1988, and my solution was to grab a great '65 B motor for $250 and swap
'em out...
For your sake, I hope your problem is different than mine!
-- Marc ('63 B, 222,897)
On Sun, 8 Dec 1996, Matthew D Yarnell wrote:
> to wait an eternity, so I downshifted from 3rd to 2nd and started
> accelerating. RPM went up, I was accelerating, and then I was
> deccelerating. The third piston back from the front had completely
> stopped firing. I stopped the car, saw nothing immediate under the
> hood, heard no mechanical bad sounds, and then limped the last mile
> home. I took out the spark plug on that piston at home, and it was
> covered in black oil - enough to prevent sparking. I cleaned off the
> spark plug, the engine started (it didn't have trouble starting before),
> and it seemed to have a little more power than before I cleaned the
> spark plug, but it is definately not right. I didn't see any other
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