Hello hello. One of my friends had a '76 van that he drove back in highschool. It stopped running about six years ago and has been parked since. We are finally getting around to trying to get the old girl running again.
The fuel system needs attention, but before we got on that we changed the oil and checked the compression. Compression was very bad:
Cyl PSI
1 0
2 0
3 130
4 0
After squirting oil in the bad cylinders, number four came up to
30psi, hardly much of an improvement. Since the compression is so horribly bad, my first thought is the valves are way tight and not closing, or the rings are stuck. My theory is that if the rings were just really worn there would at least be SOME compression. The engine turns over easily. Next step is to remove the valve covers, check the clearances, make sure everything is moving, and if that checkes out try to free up the rings with Marvel Mystery Oil.
Suggestions? This will likely be an ongoing thing so I imagine you'll be hearing more from us.
Thanks, Harry