Volkswagen: the third cylinder, perfect project, valve guides

Question
In my search for the perfect project bus I was looking at everything available older then a 71 I just like the ease of the doghouse engine. I must have seen 10. most of them extreamly rusty and just way more then I wanted to get into cosmeticly. one thing I kept runing into was a third cylinder with no compression. I am curious is there a common fix for that as the bus I picked up has a great so cal body but no compression in the third cylinder. the owner showed me documentation to say that the engine is a 1776cc. what shoud I do?  

Answer
Hi Simon,

This is a very common problem, due to the fact that #3 is the last to get the maximum flow of air for cooling.

Most likely, the valve guides/or valve seats are bad, causing no compression.  If you drive it much longer, the valve could go, and toast your whole engine.

The best you can do is to pull the motor out. (about 1-2 hours), remove the cyl. heads, bring them to a shop and have them inspected and the valves replaced, guides replaced, and seats replaced.

Torque them on properly and make sure you adjust all your valves every 5K miles to .006in.  Also, don't push it too hard and you will be just fine.

Ron

P.S. (Make sure every piece of cooling tin is properly installed, as each piece has a purpose to cool this motor.