Probably been asked a million times, but recently my 1987 22r pickup lost compression in 3 cylinders and has 90 in one cylinder. What kind of things can cause this? my mechanic said that the valves were slapping and the timing chain was loose, but that was 4 weeks before this happened.

Is it worth rebuilding or should I put in a reman engine? She's at 245k with no rebuild

 

Did you replace the timing chain? If you left it slapping valves this is a no-brainer. generally though if it slapped valves even once the damage is already done. So if it was four weeks before your problem was bad enough to keep it from running when you did the compression test it is probably still related.

 

i didn't have the money to get it replaced. I bought the truck for $2500 a few months back, would replacing the timing chain and valves solve my problem?

 

there are a lot of unknowns involved, if your mechanic was correct and it was slapping valves you let it continue and multiplied the damage many times. you need to remove the head and see how bad the damage is.
If it just bent valves then you need a new head and timing chain. if the valves broke and pounded themselves into the top of the pistons you might as well replace the whole engine because the cylinder walls will be badly scored and may not be repairable (you can only bore them out so far).

 

A lot also depends on who is doing the work. As you might have guessed, most on this forum do their own work because they like doing it. You can remove the head yourself and inspect; there isn't much you could do to make things worse. If the engine is trashed you've successfully completed a learning experience.

But if your goal is to have the cheapest truck you can lay your hands on, and plan on having a mechanic do all the work, I'd look into replacing the truck. I'm not a professional mechanic, but if I were, I'd be leery about working on any vehicle that has been too poorly maintained. It's impossible to tell the customer what the end-game will be.

 

Thanks for the help. The previous owner bought the truck off the lot new and used it for his ranch and let it sit for 15 years before driving it up to here and selling it.