John---If the head gasket is blown, this can usually be seen as air
bubbles in the coolant at the top of the radiator. (Give the engine time
to purge air trapped from cavitation) I would look for this before
taking off the head. Having the engine apart could expose it to any
number of contaminants you might later see floating in the coolant
water.
Give the "low" cylinder the "squirt of oil down the sparkplug hole
test". While it would not necessarily be good news if the pressure came
up, at least you would know that the reason might be something other
than a blown gasket.
The best way to expose this low #1 cyl. pressure would be to perform a
leakdown test, which can identify the area of pressure loss 95% of the
time.
Dick
|