First let me say that my car has almost 300K miles on it and may just be worn out. It doesn't burn any oil which always made me think that the engine was still in pretty good shape. It wouldn't start and sounded as if it was out of time. The starter sounded very different like it didn't have the same load on it. It's a 4 cylinder, single overhead cam-16 valve engine (not V-tech). I pulled the timing covers off and the upper timing belt looked as if it was looser than it should be. I took the belts off, set No. 1 piston to top dead center. I lined the crankshaft keyway up with the timing mark on the engine block and set the camshaft timing marks even with the top edge of the engine block. Belts looked good. I put the belts back on and tightened the tensioners. I adjusted all the valves. I've checked the timing by setting No. 1 piston at TDC with the cam on the timing marks. Slightly rotating the engine in both directions, the piston goes down regardless of the direction of engine rotation. The problem is: I ran a compression test on two of the cylinders (No. 1 and No. 3) and only get 30 psi on each. Would I get any pressure if it were our of time? If the head gasket were blown, would it impact compression on two cylinders that are adjacent to each other? Is it time to call the junkman?

 

My next to last sentence should have read: "two cylinders that are not adjacent to each other".