I live in Jacksonville NC, and my 67 mustang that I just put a 351W in for some reason has a dead number 2 cylinder. I'm thinking it's a stuck valve, but I don't have the money to pay someone to tear into it, just to have them charge me an arm and a leg more to fix it. Is anyone available for beer and a few bucks this weekend? I could really use the help.

 

Are you sure its not in the ignition system. I'm in Concord pretty much on the other side of the state hopefully there is someone a little closer to you.

 

yeah, it's a completely new system, compression test showed nothing in the number two cylinder

 

turn the engine manually so that the piston is on tdc with both valves closed (or where they should be closed). The rotor of distributor should point to 2nd cylinder plug.
Take out the spark plug and blow pressurised air into the cylinder
if it's coming out the intake, it's your intake valve
if it's coming out the exhaust, it's your exhaust valve
if it's coming out the oil filler or breather it's the piston and/or rings

if compression is good at 1 and 3, then gaskets are probably fine.

if it's to do with the valves, then the next thing to do is to take off the valve cover on that head and run the car in idle. it will splatter a bit of oil. check on the rockers of cyl#2. are they moving just like the ones on #1 and #3 ? if not it might be the camshaft or loose rocker or pushrod etc. You might be better off diconnecting the coil and have someone starting the car (without ignition) while you check on the rockers. It will spill a bit less oil, but both ways will work

This is all stuff you probably can do on your own, just to figure out what the actuall problem is.

Kalli

 

Kalli,
Dude!, what a great answer, You took a somewhat hard thing to describe and really made it easy to understand, nice!!!