I ran another compression test, doing it the way you said, and got 0 - 90 - 89 - 92 - 90

 

well first cylinder is bad. there are many possibilities why its ZERO.
1 you did it wrong.
2 valves are not sealing
3 cylinder is burned
4 rings are broken, less possible to be the couse.

do it again, the compresion test, but add like a spoon of oil, big spoon and check compresion again.
you could try and use starting fluid and like 14V of power on the battery. It might fire the engine up.
but on the other hand ~6.5kg/cm2 is really low and even if you start the car, engine will have low power output and will have to do evry time it will be a PITA to start.

My recomendation cheak if it is valves or pistons. it any case you will have to take the cylinder head off.
I would do a rebuild from bottom up, then like 4 people required to lift the engine off the car.

 

Check the mechanical timing, maybe you jumped a couple of teeth on the belt. You can also do a cylinder leakage test to find out where the problem is but this requires some skill and tools. With four cylinders low and the 5th one dead you will not get it started. When by old Saab had 100- 85psi in all cylinders it was impossible to start even when using starting fluid.

 

true. I tought again. dont bather with truing to start the car. check the timing if its fine then you have a problem. but not all cars same. it might be imposible to start old SAAB with low compresion, some other cars will. My father started a VAZ 21063 with compression of about 7-6 kg/cm2 by pulling the car and shifting into gear. engine started spinning way faster that with started, with some back fire at bigining car started running heated up and then well it a huge storry. but other time he tried to start a Vaz Niva 4x4 it didn't happen and compression was like 5 kg/cm2.

what im tring to say is, if you think of driving the car forget about it untill you bring compression past mark 9 kg/cm2 then chances of even starting on a brand new battery during summer will be like 70%. If you tring to prove imposible then hook the car and pull it about 10mph ingage 2 gear and ignite the baby, or even 1 gear. I belueve in you. [sm=drlove.gif]

 

small revision, it might be okey on the cold engine to have that small compression, the problem as I think is in the first cylinder and might be the timing. do a compression check with oil as I posted before. also is the engine covered in oil, is it leaking the oil? if compression magically is high then the rings, if not then the valves of pistons burned through. It is reletivly easy to remove the head. you will have to use something like this, actually some thing like it, it is a head bot key for audi/Vw

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