head gasket?

[yoda4x]

my truck starts and runs okay, but once it gets warm i lose compression in the first two cylinders.  i dont have any water in my oil.  i was told this is the head gasket, but i am not sure.  could it be the rings or valves?  kind of has me confused.  any help is appreciated.

[lowgeared]

Run a compression test on it.  If those two cylinders are low, could be most likely a head gasket.  Maybe pop the valve cover and see how the rocker arms are rocking.

[Marlin]

I have seen the head gasket blow between the 1th and 2ed cylinders. Remove both the 1th and 2ed spark plugs and run compression.

However, it sounds like you have tight valves
             cold      hot
Intake    .006      .008
Exhaust  .010      .012

Retorque the head and adjust the valves
Cold  57 lbs.   
Hot   63 lbs


Marlin

[blyota91]

Marlin, as to those valve tightening specs, I have a cam in my truck and the spec sheet for it says to adjust both to .010 when hot.  I've done this a couple times and the still make noise.  Should I try factory specs on theses adjustments?

Andrew
http://www.cardomain.com/member_pages/view_page.pl?page_id=397976

[BigMike]

I would recommend running slightly tighter on the intake side since they do not get as hot and expand less. The reason the cam sheet probably tells you to run them slightly loose is maybe to decrease valve overlap on the exhaust/intake stroke to give you better performance at lower rpms. Makes since if its a pretty aggressive cam, but its really not going to make much difference if you ask me.

Tighten up your intakes to prevent them from hammering out the seats. You dont need to worry about burning an intake valve as you would an exhaust.