Are you sure all cylinders are firing?

 

how do i check to make sure all cylinders are firing? When i took the carbs off, one of the valves that opens and closes when you hit the throttle seemed like it was "burnt" in an aspect.

 

Ahhhhh, there's a fine clue.


If it's burnt, that means excessive heat \ carbon is getting up that high. This means it's escaping from the cylinder chamber. Sounds like you've got a blown cylinder seal. This would cause lack of compression, and thus lack of combustion. After that, all the un-combusted gas gets spit out the exhaust valves, which causes:

A) Large amounts of gas in the exhaust vapors

B) Subsequent backfires.

Sound familiar? You're lookin at an engine rebuild. Feel free to stick around for a second opinion (where the Hell are you guys?), but all the pieces seem to fit into place, here.

 

How much do I look at to rebuild the engine?

 

That's a hard question to answer. I'm willing to be once you get stuff open, you're gonna find a few things wrong. It all depends on what you have to replace. Also, this is a pretty advanced situation now, and you may want to enlist some help if you haven't done engine rebuilds before. It's very similar to an old car, if that helps.