Well… shoot.
Turned out only one or two valves were a little loose, so I went through and adjusted all.
Now I’m pretty sure my motor is bad. I took a chance on it. Long story less long: installed a new cam a couple years ago, but never did the break in. Ended up in storage for quite a while.
Finally did the break in as noted a few posts back (primed it like crazy before turning it over). Thought it lost oil pressure but then thought my gauge had come loose. Then realized I couldn’t get any kind of idle or acceleration after the day of the breakin. Got progressively worse.
So today I got to it. No (zero) compression on cylinder 1. So, I removed the rockers and gave the valves a cycle (just a bump with a hammer to ensure nothing stuck), then adjusted the rockers back onto the valves. Zero compression.
Then hooked up cylinder 1 to a leak down tester. Ran 80 lbs and only held about 20. With my stethoscope I heard nothing coming out of intake or exhaust, and the sound out of the dipstick tube was loud. It isn’t the valves.
Sooo. I tested cylinder 3 to similar result. I realize cold leak down isn’t really kosher, but neither is 75 plus percent leak down. I figured I must have had something fry the cylinder walls. Either that or the motor was on its way out when I pulled it. It did not run great.
Darn it. Now to think about plan b.
EDIT: now that I have cooled off a bit and done some sleuthing, I’m wondering if this phenomenon could be stuck rings from gunk in the engine breaking loose after the break in and progressively crudding up the rings? Anyone have any experience with rings sticking after running a motor that hadn’t been run for a few years?
EDIT 2: All is not lost. First off, I realized my compression tester is toast. No way I could have zero or almost zero on every cylinder. So my read was invalid. Also, as I pulled the plugs all were thoroughly carbon fouled, which explains the progressive loss of function after breakin. I’m soaking the cylinders presently in some atf just to ensure I didn’t wash them too badly. I realized after break in that I had a stuck secondary float, and while trying to sort that out im now thinking I fouled the motor badly, and then got spooked by my bad compression tester. I’m rejecting the cold leak down test given all this. More hopeful after reflecting on it. We’ll see this week. Too much drama.
