In a message dated 9/7/03 5:35:28 PM Central Daylight Time, jaysen15251@xxxx writes: > I recently purched an 81 from an auction , needs alot of work but i > knew that going in , while removing the belts and hoses i decided to > turn over the engine with a socket wrench ,and noticed it was much > easier than i anticipated, im going to continue as planned and was > hopping to try and get it to start by october , should i be concerned > about this ?? When i was doing a valve adjustment last winter, i had my valve covers off and have to turn the crankshaft manually as part of the job. i remember that as i turned the crank, the resistance went up and down kind of like a sine wave with each rotation. easy, then harder, easy, then harder (the difference between the two was not immense but noticeable). with each resistance change, i could hear the engine 'breathing' like a bellows as the pistons compressed and then let out the air. if you don't hear this breathing and it is the same resistance as you go, my guess would be a compression problem as you suspect. Andy [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]