No compression in cylinder number one

[Spoolin4Ever]

SO on Thanksgiving I was on the highway heading over the pass. I heard a noise and there was powerloss, studdering on excel, especially in 5th gear. Thought it was my imgaination and pulled over later to use the rest stop. Car would die instead of idling, power is low and car studders when driving it, although when you get up to highway speed it still moves pretty good (for a 3 cylinder).

Got to my destination, and tested some things, the following are the results:

1.; After pulling plugs, noticed the #1 cylinder had dirty plug, Investigated for spark; yes there is spark (started car with #1 plug hanging out connected to wire and it was very sparky).

2. Fuel; looks like it is getting fuel. There is some gas in there and on the plug.

3. Compression; NO COMPRESSION in cylinder #1.

4. Wet compression test: NO CHANGE.

That is all the testing I did and left the car there til Xmas. So I have a question.

1. Could I have jumped timing and cause it to lose compression in just one cylinder?

If yes, could it be possible not to lose any valves, and just retime it? I just want to know if that ever happens or not .

Otherwise, I guess I need to do the following:

1. Leak down test

2. Check timing, by turning the crankshaft by hand using a 1/2 inch socket wrench (turning it only clockwise), may take up to 6 turns for all the timing marks to line up. By the way timing belt was last done about 52K ago or so.

Please answer that question for anyone that really knows.

 

[hubz91talontsi]

Just normal driving? No if it jumped timing your valves hit the piston and put a hole in #1 which would cause 0 compression. Take the head off won't hurt anything but im calling a shot piston and maybe other bent valves.

 

[delta448]

Did you perform the compression test on the other cylinders too? If you jumped timing it's unlikely that you would see a complete loss of compression on only one cylinder and not see a significant change on the rest. I think you've likely got a hole in the piston either way. Time to pull the head.

 

[Spoolin4Ever]

I thought the wet test would let me know if there is a hole in the piston. I guess not becuse that just seals around it but not in the middle of it.

I did not test all the other cylinders but the plugs looked normal in them. ALthough I did test number 2 and it hit 150 no proble, I didn't test to see the mx, these were all about 155 before. I will check them Xmas time.

 

[SpeedAddict62]

I'm going to shoot a guess here, because this sounds eerily like personal experience. I was driving down the freeway, not doing anything crazy, and then all of a sudden it started to stutter, lose power and generally run horribly. A compression test showed #3 cylinder with no compression, spark plug was clean because that cylinder hadn't been firing (I had to drive it home). Pulled the head off and a nice big chunk of one of my exhaust valves was completely gone...never found it either. So from your description, and assuming all other cylinders are OK on compression, I say burned valve. Anticipate buying/rebuilding a head.

 

[johnnytsi]

This does sound like a burned valve.

I would suggest:

1. compression test the other 3 cylinders
   • if the three other cylinders are fine suspect a burned/broken valve, or piston.
   • if #2 is also low suspect a blown head gasket between #1 and #2 cylinders
   
   
2. buy/build a way to hook compressed air into #1 cylinder (my compression gauge is 2 piece and the hose will hook right up to my compressor) rotate the engine to TDC (compression stroke) on #1 and listen at the following spots:
   • exhaust - if you hear loud air sounds, you burned an exhaust valve
   • air intake - if you hear loud air sounds, you burned an intake valve
   • valve cover/oil fill cap - if you hear loud air sounds here, you burned up a piston

 

[diambo4life]

It's one of two problems;

1. Hole in the piston crown or in the ring land area,
2. Chipped one of the valves in that cylinder.

Just pull the head and the cause will be GLARING at you. You have to pull the head either way.

 

[Icarus]

Sounds like a burnt valve. Same thing happened to me coming up the grade to Quincy from East Wenatchee (small world). Pulled over in George popped the hood and the exhaust manifold was more orange than red. Later when I pulled the exhaust manifold I saw there was a chunk missing from one of the valves. Cross your fingers and hope it didn't eat you exhaust turbine on the way out.

 

[HIGHPSI4]

Humm....had a friend that set his timing for the first time. It was a little off. So, after a few drive cycles he had a condition that he could not built boost under 3000 rpm. At 3000 and above he had boost. Turns out when we pulled the head it had run lean and burnt a valve. It looked like you had taken a plasma cutter and cut a 5mm gap in the exhaust valve.

 

[marsh63]

Sounds like a burnt valve. Same thing happened to me coming up the grade to Quincy from East Wenatchee (small world). Pulled over in George popped the hood and the exhaust manifold was more orange than red. Later when I pulled the exhaust manifold I saw there was a chunk missing from one of the valves. Cross your fingers and hope it didn't eat you exhaust turbine on the way out.

sounds like a burnt valve to me too. my car was running to lean and i lost all my compression in #1 too and when i pulled the head my valve was toast. if i was you i would do a leak down test.

 

[Spoolin4Ever]

Yes it is 2 burned valves is what it turned out to be. Can you tell I procrastinated working on it? Well I left it on the other side of the mountain so that made it easy to put off.

Now having the valves replaced....