sticking vave/tappet when cold

that is so funny.

 

I put a V6 back together after it sat on my garage floor for about ten years. Right away I bent a push rod. OK, I have spares. It ran about two minutes and bent the second rod on the same valve. Pulled the rocker arm off again and put the hammer handle on the top of the valve to push on it and smack the heck out out of the top of the hammer for a few minutes, (I have big hands) It hasn't failed in about ten years and I do travel with an extra pushrod. I hope your project works for you.

 

UPDATE: I determined that #4 cylinder was the culprit of the stuck valve/tappet problem; removed the spark plug, cranked engine, little to no compression on that cylinder.
MMO was liberally applied thru the spark plug hole.
The engine then sat for about 3 days.
This morning I turned the engine over slowly by hand several times.
I then cranked the engine over with the spark plug and coil wire removed.
While cranking, the compression with #4 was back; the engine then started very easily.
After the plume of smoke abated, I then let it sit and idle for about 20 minutes, or up to temperature.
I'll restart it again in the morning, which is when it acts up, but I'm pretty sure the MMO did the trick.

 

Im a believer in mmo. I had a chevy 350 that burned a quart every 600mi probrobly had stuck rings. i put the mmo in and all fixed it burned maybe a quart every 2k after that

 

I have seen three instances of stuck valves in recent months, in various engines, and had never come across it before in several decades.

Modern fuels and oils?