Not kidding you. Actually, I wasn't talking to you. I've had guides drop a little compression on me before. It was the same scenario he is talking about. It sat for about 6 months and the guides got a little surface rust that made it to the stems when the car was started and then cut the seals up. I was chasing down turbo seals while the valvetrain was balling itself all up. The guides got so sloppy that the valves weren't seating right from all the coked up oil on top of them. No, it wasn't 25 psi, but it was 10 or so. Of course increased head noise accompanied it.

I would've thought rings first. But I've never seen anybody screw up a wet test. So I believed the guy.

Head gasket would've been my 2nd choice, but I've seldom seen them blow between the cylinder and side of the block... most often between the cylinder and coolant passage, or between cylinders. He didn't mention pushing fluid or compression low in the next cylinder.

Maybe I should have stated differently and said, "It could be valvetrain, because it happened to me..." I should have explained better and given him a better idea of how I came to that statement. Either way, I'm not kidding you or anyone else.

 

I've torn apart a million cylinder heads with serious mileage. Rarely do I see valve stem play as horrible as you depict. Typically when you see a loss in compression, its NOT from valve stem play. Its from a bad head gasket, bad rings, or bad valve seal. I have seen problems with valve guides, but they are very very rare and usually only occur with a serious accumulation in mileage or improper installation. I think this is what xRoguex was implying...

 

^^^^ yup^^