Well, I FINALLY took a little time to get the passenger side head off of Vicki's old motor to see what happened in cylinder three to make it completely lose compression. After breaking one bolt off in the block and using some choice words while getting the rest of the bolts out I finally got the head off and got a peak inside.


Here is a shot looking straight down at the cylinders on the passenger side of the motor. Cylinder three is the one in the middle (Cylinder One is to the right and Cylinder Five is the one to the left). You can easily see the massive amount of carbon build up in all of the cylinders.


Here's a close up shot of cylinder three. There is a LOT of carbon built up on the top of the piston.


Here's an angled close up of cylinder three. Again, you can see the carbon build up, but the cylinder itself looks like it's in good shape. You can still see the cross hatching in the cylinder wall, but that makes me think that maybe the rings weren't seated against the cylinder wall completely. I would think that after 130K miles the cross hatching would be worn away if the rings were sealed tight to the cylinder wall.


Here's a close up of cylinder one and..


cylinder five for comparison.


Here's a shot of the underside of the passenger side head, and as you can see the exhaust valve in cylinder three is a bit wonky. Looks like a burnt valve is the culprit. It isn't sealing against the head completely so the cylinder couldn't hold pressure.


Close up of the cylinder three head. Again, the burnt valve is clearly visible.


Here's a shot of the cylinder one head and...


the cylinder five head for comparison.

It's all very interesting (to me), but I hope that this can help out some of the other owners that are having engine issues.