Ok, well it wasn't stuck when I bought it, but... It cranked, but with absolutely no compression -like if you'd pulled all 4 plugs out. I neglected to read up before starting, and was shocked to find there's not really a head and valve cover, rather a two piece head with the cams sandwiched between. I know now that the bolts are to be loosened and tightened in sequence. Whatever I did seems to have bound the cams, you can't crank with the starter or using a wrench on the shaft. I got the top half of the head off, didn't touch anything else, and put it right back... clearly I screwed something important (and possibly very expensive) up.

The car is in decent shape, and has about 125k on the clock. I'd really like to get it running, even if I have to replace the head. (dark purple... we call it the "Eggplant") I've heard of some "lawnmower syndrome" in which the injectors dribble and wash the oil off the cylinders after shutdown, and that this may have been behind the original loss of compression, but... The seller told me her son had added too much oil, and that this "blew the head gasket". I doubt that. More likely he added oil because it was running hot because the head gasket was failing. Though I would have expected uneven cranking due to a gasket blown between two cylinders. Opinions, genuine assistance appreciated!

 

Either run away - or be ready to spend more than the car is worth. I've had customers leave at least 200 cars with me over the years and never pick them up because the repairs cost more than the car was worth. That could easily be the case with yours. My advice would be to punt and run.

 

Sounds like the cams are out of time - don't try to crank it, since (if I'm right) your pistons are getting in a fist-fight with your valves, and you do NOT want to start warping the valves.

You really need to read up on the procedure for setting the cam timing and get it back into proper timing.

 

The engine already had no compression - so I agree, if someone wanted to pursue this further - the next step would be to undo what was just done wrong, then use the cam alignment tool to verify proper cam timing. Then be sad when you've now spent xx dollars and xxx time to find you have bent valves. Then determine if the car is worth a very expensive valve job taking the chance there is nothing else major wrong with the car.

If the car was bought non running - the lack of compression could have been the final straw as the previous owner might have ignored things that were broken until the timing belt had a problem.

 

I agree that this project will ONLY be viable as a "labor of love" (or simply being to ornery to minimize my losses...), there's no way the result will warrant the costs. I also agree there may be far more underlying work after getting the engine running. I've always suspected a cheap car on CL that "needs a starter" just means that's why they quit driving it. Never mind the transmission that won't go into 4th, the A/C that quit 2 years ago, the overheat that resulted in needing to top up coolant twice a week! Oh, but we're leaving that cool head unit with the cassette player in it...