420a with no compression!

[OneFastEclipse]

Well I have a 420a eclipse as my beater and just the other day while driving home the car suddenly started to feel very sluggish, then all the sudden it just died. Was driving the car completely normal, was not beating on it. Anyways, after getting the car towed home, I did a few checks on it, the car is getting fuel, it is getting spark, and it is turning over. It refuses to start. So what's the only thing left in the equation? Compression! I got my compression tester out and checked all 4 cylinders. Three of the four had zero compression, one of them had 30 compression! It was something like 0, 0, 30, 0. That is obviously my prob but I am trying to figure out what the fault was. My only guess is the head gasket since it lost compression in all the cylinders. Do you think I am right or could it be something else entirely? Thanks.

 

[BigRand]

A head gasket usually sees white smoke as your driving, and even then can be tolorated for a little while. You can still drive with a blown headgasket.

Is there any oil coming up from your PVC vavle in excess.
I bet if you were to rip off the head you'll find a couple peices missing. a valve or something.

 

[dr1665]

Tensioner on the tBelt died on you. First, timing slipped enough to affect timing negatively, then it went out enough to drop compression below useable. Just spent a month and a half dicking with all kinds of sensors and shit to find my tensioner took a shit on me. New tensioner and belt and she started right up. Check timing imo.

EDIT:
If this is the case (as it was for me), you might have dodged a bullet. Better it slipped and died, than popped and blew up.

 

[martyd03]

I would agree with dr1665, it really sounds like a timing problem and not a head gasket. Usually a head gasket means white smoke or white oil, not a total loss of compression.
When I broke my timing belt and then replaced my cams & gears I had a problem getting my timing marks lined up 100%. The first couple of times I got them back together I was way off and it just rolled over fast and had little or no compression.
You can actually be pretty far out of time and not screw anything up, but be VERY careful because when something does go wrong, it REALLY goes wrong.
Hope this helps a bit.

 

[selmerguy]

10-1 odds its a timing belt thing.

 

[eclipse13]

It is the timing belt. Same thing happened to me only it was a little more violent. I was at WOT chasing down a riced out eclipse, and all of a sudden it just took a shit on me. Ended up the tensioner disintegrated and the timing jumped. New tensioner and it ran like new.