18RG poor compression in #3

[GT1978]

I have a feeling I may have a stuck ring in my #3 cyl. Did a compression test yesterday and came back with 240 230 180 240. Tried to do a wet test to check the valves but blew the hose of my tester and now it won't hold the reading.

At this stage I'm hoping that the excessive carbon build up from having too rich an idle jet has just clogged the ringlands.

If it is a ring binding in the ringlands is there any way I can free it up without major surgery? Pump the cylinder full of WD40 or something to flush through and lube the rings?


Glen

[af300e]

Diesel engine oils are generally higher in detergents than gasoline engine oils and can sometimes have an effect on ring binding issues.
It's apparantly an old trick to substitute a litre of engine oil for a litre ATF for short period, but I've not tried it. It's also suggested that the filter should be changed before doing this I suppose to prevent the detergents in the ATF from washing shit out of the filter and back into the system.

Here's a link to ATF flushing. They actually replace the oil with ATF but only run it stationary for a very short time.
http://www.landroverforums.com/archi...h-24030-1.html

[GT1978]

Cheers. Thats some interesting reading. This might come in handy when I pull my other car out of storage. Hasn't seen the light of day for over 3 years now and the engine hasn't been rotated either.

[o_man_ra23]

I would suggest before going further, get a replacement compression tester (threaded type, not push in) and re-perform the test. Even better, get a leakdown test done by a decent mechanic (if there is one). This will save you from possibly expensive guesses. Without the results of a wet test, we can't be sure that it is the rings, it could be a burnt valve, which if you run ATF, will just mean your adding contaminants in your system and wasting money.

[af300e]

^^That sounds fair enough.

[GT1978]

Yeah intend on getting another compression tester to redo the wet test. The one I've got at the moment has a threaded end (my arms arn't long enough to crank the engine while holding in the push in type). Prob with the one I had is that it had a hose spear on the rear that the hose was clamped to. This combined with having recessed spark plug holes forced me to use the hose to screw the threaded end in and out and some times the hose would just spin on the fitting slowly getting looser until the final straw when the engine blew the hose off the fitting. Scared the begeezas out of me

Glen