Zero Compression on cylinder 4

[morgan]

Hello Every-buddy

Ok, I've been driving my car one month a year for the last 3 years and here is what used to happen:

1. I'm running well on all 4 cylinders, good power, having a good time.

2. Sitting at a red light on a hot day or behind a slow driver trying not to lug it in third.

3.All of the sudden, cylinder 4 stops firing and I'm 3/4 as happy as I was before

4. I say "whatever", go home and clean all of the burned oil/ charcoal that's fouled my number 4 plug (The rest look great)

5. Start up the car and generate an emmense, embarassing cloud of blue smoke and the car runs great again for a week


and here is what happens now
Skip to step 4 of the above.

4. Now plug 4 is oily but nowhere near fouled. I give it a clean anyway but no improvement. I drive around for a week and then while sitting in traffic I generate a monstrous cloud of blue smoke and the engine is happy and running on all four again.

Ok, now in the third year of this and the engine is in the 3/4 state, I buy a compression tester and I learn that cylinder 4 has zero compression. Isn't that interesting? So, what's going on? Can valves periodically stick? Where is all of the oil coming from. This is very perplexing. Otherwise the engine IS running great.

A Note: looking at past posts, it seems like valve problems are most frequent on cylinder 4. Can anybody back this up?

1973 2.0L 914 chassis with a 75 1.8L engine
Dual Weber 40 idf Carbies
050 Distributor soon to be replaced by custom DIS Ignition
286 degree cam

Morgan

[DuckRyder]

based upon the smoking, my guess would be that you have some rings sticking for some reason.

Is it running hot?