car troubles

I have a 76 mav with a 250 i6 in it and it ran rough for a while until my friend helped me take the carb off and clean it up. It ran great for a few days until on my way home tonight i heard a loud ticking noise, i turned off my radio and listened to it, then not long after that it felt like the engine just lost all power. if i got on the throttle just a little bit the noise would come back and it felt like the engine wanted to die. there are also 2 bolts missing out of the valve cover and it leaks oil pretty bad, the last time i checked it had plenty of oil in it. any help is greatly appreciated.

 

has the car sat for a while? if so how long? does it have the original gas tank or a new one?

 

Id check oil before starting car again.

 

it sat for quite a while but i replaced the gas tank because it was leaking

 

definately start with the oil. also if that is not the problem, if it was running fine then started ticking and lost power you may have a broken rocker or bent\jumped pushrod. if you check for that at least you can replace the leaky valve cover gasket at the same time...

 

Check fuel flow to carb. Check accel pump.

 

i added some oil and it ran alright tonight, my friend says the carb needs rebuilt

 

if you added oil and it started running again, you need to do more than rebuild the carb before driving too much. how much oil did you add? you may want to make sure you are only leaking from the valve cover and fix the gasket there.

 

i added a quart of oil, its hard to tell where its leaking from because it leaks out of the valve cover and runs all the way down the side of the engine.