Hi everybody

I was on the list until last September but had to sign off when I moved
here to California for school and got too swamped with work to read any
email.

I've got a problem now with my compression and was hoping to get some
advice.  I'm dribing and '89 by the way.  Basically it looks like I've got
a sticky valve.  The mechanic was troubleshooting something else and found
that air shot into the #2 cylinder was coming out the exhaust.  The
compression was 75 as of two weeks ago but it feels like I may have lost a
little bit more power recently.

The mechanic said that I might as well keep driving it for now but I'm
having second thoughts.  I put a lot of miles on the van and I will likely
be driving back across the country this summer so I'm thinking I might as
well get the work done now.

He said that the valve would have to be redone and if we were going to be
in that far I might as well have the headgaskets done on both sides-- the
last head gasket job was about 70,000 miles ago.  Ballpark estimate was
about 700 to do the one side and deal with the valve or just over 1000 for
everything.

I'm inclined to get it all done with at once.  So, I was hoping to get some
feedback from others on whether this sounds like the best plan.  Any
thoughts or comments would be appreciated as I agonize whether to spend
this kind of money.  Thanks in advance and please p-mail as I'm not getting
the list.

Mark Schrope
'89 Wolfsburg