[TR] To feed or not to feed

[Mark Hooper]

At the risk of reviving the rancorous discourse, I have a question. First, the
usual long pre-amble/explanation:

For the past couple of years I have been chasing down leaks and issues related
to a strong oil smell in the car when running. I was convinced it was leaks
burning off the exhaust. Now, amazingly I seem to have cured all leaks on the
car. Dry as a stick down under (and, no, it is not out of oil). Carbs are
newly rebuilt and no gas leaks anywhere either. Unfortunately the smell is
still there.

Last night when working on timing and idle, I noticed that the car is
definitely smoking out the exhausts when idling. I do not have a lot of miles
on the engine and it had all new valve guides and valves installed in the
rebuild (over a decade ago, but only a few thousand miles since then). I am
not burning much oil at all in normal use and the oil is not excessively
black, so blowby seems minimal.

I am suspecting excessive oiling. After years of whining about the rotten
oiling in the TR6 rocker shaft, I bought and installed one of the external
oiling feeds for the engine. Certainly there seems to be lots of oil up top
now. Before, I recall seeing all sorts of dry rockers and I went through two
shafts. However, when converting to roller rockers I seem to recall having
discovered a pea of orange silicone in the shaft pedestal passageway where it
fed into the shaft. So, perhaps my problem was self-inflicted, rather than
just rotten design.

So, I am guessing the solution is either to install valve stem seals, or to
dump the oiling feed. Is there concensus/opinion on the list as to which way
is best? I do not race the car. 75% is spent cruising slowly down lakeshore
just looking at houses etc. The rest is occasionally highway runs to
countryside. Is it easy to install stem seals or am I making life
unnecessarily hard? Is there a middle road? I do recall hearing about oiling
feed restrictors; what is that about?

I appeal to the wisdom of the list!

Mark Hooper
1972 TR6