After a nearly two year stint on the hard, Patina is back in the water. I tested everything I could before putting her back in the water, but some things I just had to check after launching. This afternoon, I was able to get the engine running, quite smoothly, 40psi oil pressure, 140 degrees F, idled nicely, all that good stuff. After running the engine under load and at idle, in gear and neutral for close to 45 minutes, everything seemed fine. No leaks, no stopping, no surging, no apparent missing. For grins, I pulled the spark plugs just to take a look. What I found, you see above. I immediately did a compression check, and all four cylinders were within a few psi of each other (on the low end at 80 psi, but I'm using a compression tester from Harbor Freight, so caveat emptor). Cylinders 1 and 2 look very oily while cylinders 3 and 4 look like they're supposed to. I'm a bit perplexed... I was thinking stuck valves on 1 and 2 or a bad head gasket between the two, but their compression was exactly the same as 3 and 4, which look fine. I did figure out that I was running a cooler plug than Don recommends in the MMI manual (an 8 vs. a 12), but the differences between cylinders are pretty striking, with no other apparent symptoms.
What does this mean? Anything?
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