[Healeys] Four cylinder woes, part two!

[Steven Kingsbury]

Okay, here's the latest! I finally got to pull my head. If you remember, I had 155 lbs of pressure in cylinders 1, 3, and 4 and only 25 lbs in cylinder number two. So with the head off, I was prepared to find a problem with I flipped it over to expose the valves, no such luck. Other than number two exhaust valve being a bit black, no cracks, nothing stuck and it looked fine. So then I went to look into the cylinders themselves, walls smooth, flat high compression pistons smooth, number three a bit rough on the top, but other than that and good.
   So then I went back to the head, put the spark plugs back in and filled the combustion chambers with paint thinner to see where it would leak out. Filled each chamber evenly and waited. Twelve hours later, and other than evaporation, no leaks! All chambers still even in their fluid retention. 
   So then I rotated the crank to get all the pistons to an almost even position and put paint thinner in the cylinders at the same depth. No quick leak, not one cylinder faster than the others and all the fluid finally drained out smoothly and evenly in each cylinder. 
   I'm a bit stumped. My next step is taking the head to a guy in town, an old machinist who builds his own engines and runs his car at Bonneville in the 300 mph range. He knows what he's doing and I'm sure he will give me some sage advice and help. Also as a side note, I went over the head with a magnifying glass and can see now cracks, but that doesn't mean they are not there I know. I was just thinking with a 100 pound plus difference, something would be obvious. 
   I am also going to be taking off the tappet cover on the side, inspect all the lifters and see what I can find there. Like I said, I'm a bit perplexed, but I'm not done. I will find something wrong! Here are some photos for you, maybe you can see something I can't.


Here's the head, upside down and you can see the exhaust valve on number two is blacker than the others, but no cracks, chips, or visible damage.
And here's the fluid I placed in the combustion chambers. It didn't drain out and just sat there.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://autox.team.net/pipermail/healeys/attachments/20200312/c46d860b/attachment-0001.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_20200311_172123.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 2939799 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://autox.team.net/pipermail/healeys/attachments/20200312/c46d860b/attachment-0002.jpg>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: IMG_20200311_143602.jpg
Type: image/jpeg
Size: 3079079 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://autox.team.net/pipermail/healeys/attachments/20200312/c46d860b/attachment-0003.jpg>