Well, after battling my P0304 and P1319 issue, my shop tested the compression in Cylinder 4 and the compression was zero.

I am going to drive it home, park it and then put my thinking cap on. It has a ton of good parts on it, but I just don't have the time or money to spend on an entire rebuild at this point.

What have you guys done in this situation?

 

Put a little oil in the cylinder and recheck compression. If it goes up we know it's a bad ring. I would be you have a valve not fully sealing up however. The oil in the cylinder will show no change if it's valve train related.

No change with the oil I would pop the valve cover off and watch as it spins over

 

Yep ArmyRover listed exactly what I'd do!

 

I'll third that. A leakdown test can be used to determine where the fault is. If air is coming out of the valve cover, it is a blown ring or hole in the piston. If it is the intake, bad intake valve. Exhaust, bad exhaust valve. A good mechanic would have already done the test.

 

Thanks guys. I am going to get it tonight. Will contact another mechanic to do a leak down test.

I can't damage it more by driving it can I?

 

Just drove her home. Not sure what it is indicative of but the exhaust smelled terrible.

 

That’s from cat damage. You shouldn’t drive it or at least try to disable the fuel injector on #4

 

I was told I couldn't do any damage. Time for a new mechanic.

 

Calling about a leak down test on Monday. If it ends up being a valve, I may store the truck until I have time/inclination to fix or pull out the motor.

If it is the piston likely I will take off what parts I can and junk it. Loath to do it to a Turner Short block, but not sure I would just rather do an LS swap vs an entire rebuild.

No good choice to make really.

 

I would pull that engine and sell the turner block for sure if you are going to junk or swap. No compression like that would typically be a valve issue. It could be a piston but it would have to be some pretty bad damage. Do you have a borescope?