Cylinder #4 is Dead

Hi all

Well where do I begin...
The vehicle in question
1995 Chevy Lumina APV
3.1 VIN D
TBI
Distributor ingintion
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A head bolt was broken between cylinder # 3 & #5 So off went the heads. Sent the heads out to have them milled pressure tested and a valve job done.
Cost $220 total. Not to bad...
Head set $50 bucks even better
New Cap, Rotor, Plugs, Wires, Oil change, & coolant to make the job complete.
Total invested aroud $360 bucks.

I assembled the motor in reverse of my notes I took while doing this. ( I have done many head gasket jobs before and never ran into a problem Like this)
Should I mention that I didn't need to pull the Distributor :)
So the timing was not messed with. started the car on the first pull Imagine that!
But the car seemed to be missing. Verified the firing order with Advanced auto parts as 1-2-3-4-5-6 and the Distributor spins Clock-wise. So every other wire is eother going towards the front of the van or the firewall Right? Well so I thought. I started by verifying that #1 was at TDC and that the the #1 piston was all the way up. I was and the distributor was pointing right at #1. So far so good. Pulled all the wires and ran them again. So I start the vehiclew again and it is still missing. SO i started pulling wires while it is running and notice that #3 & #4 are not firing, So I swap them around and the enigine started to run better. Cool, so maybe there is another wire messed up. But not every time I pull a wire , the engine dies a bit till I plug it back in EXCEPT for #4. that cylinder is dead as door nails. pulled the plug not much to tell its brand new so I ground it out against the motor mout and it does spark. Not great but it sparks. Pulled #2 and did the same thing spoarks the same amount as #4. So the Spark is there.

I should mention that when adjusting the rocker arm nuts, I adjusted them down till the push rods stopped spinning.

The vehicle pops through the throttle body and cylinder #4 will not fire. Any ideas? If you need more info lemme know If I can remember I post it.

Thanks in advanced.
Jim

Post update

I went back at this evening threw everything I know and have come up with the following... I need to run the valve lash again.


after reading around I looked at the push rods and all appeared to be the same length.. I quickly went to advanced autopasrts .com and priced them out. according to them, there is only 1 push rod available. So it would appear that they are in fact the same length..

Now setting the rocker arm adjustment any ideas on that?

well, it shouldn't be puffing through the intake at all. My suspect is the valve job. Maybe a valve isnt seated correctly. You can buy or borrow a cylinder leak down test, and do it on your number 4 to see what the deal is. It will tell you if its the intake or the exhaust valve. Have you even maybe just tried a compression test? maybe start there. If there isnt any compression, then you know its a valve. good luck. If you need more infor on a leakdown test, let us know.

I re ran the valves and the engine runs 100% better now. I needed to set the valve lash wth each rocker arm on the base circle of the cam...

nice, good job.