Awww shucks.... 0 Compression

[chittychittybangbang]

- Got the car at 96K and now 107K. The car has been burning a lot of oil over this period, like 5Q every 5K miles. I didn't see smoke in the pipes, and didn't have any turbo issues so didn't do anything to deal with this. Believe this is perhaps connected to the more pressing issue of a misfire and 0 compression.

- I had a misfire and the codes read a 3rd cylinder misfire on the highway. After buying new coils and plugs, I did the thing I should have done in the first place and ran compression.

- I got 150/160 in all cylinders, except for Cylinder 3, which was 0PSI both dry, and with a few tbs of oil. (The oil seemed to sit on top of the piston for a while as well, so I suspect piston rings are good.)

- I don't think it is a water jacket leak in the headgasket as I've not had any heating issues, no coolant loss, and there were no bubbles in the overflow tank when cranking.

- I don't think it is a bent valve as my timing belt is in good shape, but will endoscope to confirm.

- I think one valve might be stuck open due to carbon deposits. See spark plug, the black one is from cylinder 3



- The crankcase vent hose didn't look clogged. I will need to check the EGR system. There was a bit of oil atop the valve cover, like may be a 1/2 pint, but this could have been spillage over time from me pouring oil in without a funnel.

- Based on the oil burn and 0 compression, I suspect either a stuck valve or burnt valve.

Next steps:

- I will run a leak-down, and endoscope
- I've read about fully filling a cylinder with solvent, then turkey basting it out to clean both the intake and exhaust valves.
- Ive read the "rev the engine for a few minutes" technique in the event of a stuck valve. I'll give this a shot.
- If the endoscope shows an intake valve issue, I'll likely remove the intake manifold and introduce solvent that way, and also check for leaks at TDC

Am I headed in the right direction? Looming over me is the idea of a head removal and replacement, but I'd like to do some more less-invasive diagnosis, and perhaps find a less-invasive resolutions (perhaps optimistic, but also planning for the worst).

Clearwater does not have any S60 2013 heads. Where else can I look?

[RickHaleParker]

Use the endoscope to look for stuck rings on #3.
You might try flooding #3 with Seafoam. Give it a long soak, then push out the sea foam ( stick something absorbent down the spark plug well and turn over the engine). Get as much of the Seafoam out before you reinstall the spark plug. The Seafoam will eat away any carbon sticking the rings.

You might get #3 to top dead center on the compression stroke then pour Seafoam into the #3 injector port. If the Seafoam gets into the cylinder, you just pick up some useful information.

[chittychittybangbang]

Bad situation but closing the loop on this. I did some more diagnosis, but my Boroscope was too wide to 180-it and I lost the mirror attachment. At this point I've kind of thrown my hands up as it's my wife's commuter and she's been patient enough with this shade-tree monkey. Also, we don't have a garage and it is super cold in Boston.

I sent it to my local Indy. They leak-tested, boroscoped and removed the cam cover to check the valves and offered me three solutions. Their leak test was inconclusive, they were also not able to boroscope upside down (180 up at the valves).

I'll take back the old motor and take it apart on my free time for a post-mortem with some pics.

1 $2500 for a head replacement all in (clearwater quoted ~500 for a complete head as a part)
2. $4500 for an 80K motor (30k less than current) with a new timing belt, and replace any hoses behind the motor and a 6M warranty.
3. $500 to remove the head and inspect the underside of the valves, then decide on 1 or 2.

I went with option 2 due to a couple of rationalizations:
- I'll get to skip the 100k service interval and the next TB change will be 180K
- I get rid of all my cars around 180K and the amortization of the 4500 from 80K to 180k miles is around 4.5c per mile.
- The head option comes out to about 3.5c per mile from 110k to 180k
- I don't think option 1 would have resolved whatever caused the issue (which i believe is connected to an oil burn situation, and the PCV system.) The motor will come with a new PCV system.

[chittychittybangbang]

Closing out the loop here, I got the head off and both exhaust valves were chipped to the effect of about 1 cm^2. Everything else looked fine. What is valve chipping a symptom of? Pics to follow.

Looks like the motor is fine, save two valve replacements in the head. How would you guys get rid of the motor (or recover some cash?). Would motor re-builders take the whole long-block to rebuild for some core charge? If so, who?

[June]

There is a burnt valve database thread here on MVS. Last I read most cars had aftermarket coolant and were using regular fuel as common factors with engines with burnt valves.

Ask your garage if you paid a core charge on the used engine. June

[oragex]

Not sure on this, but I would test the injector spray patter on that cylinder, and also ignition coil. Not sure if the piston rings can also cause this. Something melted the valves and you want to know what it is.

[chittychittybangbang]

Thanks Oragex and June, I'm going to read into the database specifically about rings. My post above is pretty long but prior to the compression loss, I was burning oil. Not enough to cause visible smoke, but enough to drink about 5Q/5K miles. Maybe that indicates a ring issue? The PCV breather seemed fine (not clogged at all) and there was no visible sludge build-up in the top end. The exhaust turbine outlet of the turbo was also pretty clean. I'll post pics later.

I guess to continue with the post-mortem I will test the injectors. No way to do a controlled test however. I'm going to implement the straw, 9v battery, and "don't inhale" method.

What's a good way to test the rings now that the pistons are exposed? I'm planning to pour a controlled amount of oil into each cylinder and just see how quickly each one drains out.