No compression in one cylinder.. anything I can do before pulling head?

Yeah you might be right, could have been something totally different. Even a good machinist can mess up I guess. He did show me the valve after he took it out though, and it had what looked like dark oil all over it, except it was a much thicker consistency... I guess the question is whether it actually had anything to do with the compression problem or not.

Either way, it's all back together now and I checked compression across all cylinders and it looked good!

Then I rebuilt the carb, hooked the fuel pump up to a can of new gas, turned the key, and... nothing. Couldn't get it to even try to start. Not even with some starter fluid sprayed in. Will take a step back and check everything over tomorrow night, I think I have an ignition problem somewhere.
 
And she's back on the road! Finally fixed my ignition problem - I had converted my carb choke over to electric, and the Holley instructions say to run it off the + side of the coil. Apparently this isn't a good idea, because it must have been draining just enough voltage away to leave me with almost no spark. Switched it over to running off the alternator stator and all is well again.

Then I got the fuel tank drained and cleaned out the lines, and put some fresh gas in, buuuut then my water pump sprung a leak (luckily in my garage) and had to replace that. Also rigged up a new throttle cable bracket, that feels much more solid than what I had before.

But it's all good because this weekend I got it running again, and it seemed pretty solid so I took it out for a quick ride around the block that ended up being a 45 min drive all over... It felt great! Phew, I'm so happy she's out driving again.

Thanks again all!
 
You only have 9V at the stator, the choke needs 12V. You need to use a relay triggered by the stator so you get a full 12V at the choke coil.
 
Yes, you're right it's not a full 12v. I had read in other forums that this how Ford did it back in the day... that could be wrong, but it seems to be opening up my choke (Holley) fine. I'll see how things go in the winter time.

I do have a relay already for my MSD box, but that will run when cranking too... I guess it wouldn't be a big difference if I ran off of that - opening a few seconds earlier probably wouldn't be noticable. If I start having problems I'll swap it over to that.
 
In the early 80's most of the at least 2bbl carbs had a choke housing designed to run on stator voltage.
 
my YF ran very well offa the stator lug (a '68 model) for 30 + yrs. I put in an inline fuse but don't think it wuz needed.
Will find a relay, as suggested, 4 the RBS ('74), thnx Bill...
 
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