The pistons don't have to exactly the same height, just somewhere near. Use a stick in the spark plug hole.

 

I agree with Keith on using a stick. Since the middle two pistons travel together and one and four travel together, get a small stick or dowel or even less desirable, a long thin screwdriver and remove all of your sparkplugs. Put your stick in the hole for #2 or 3 and rotate the engine by hand. When the piston hits the bottom of the stroke and starts to come up, make a mark on the stick. Continue to rotate the engine and when the piston reaches the top of the stroke and and starts to go down again, make another mark on the stick. Pull the stick out and measure the distance between the marks and make another one in the center between the two. Put the stick back in the hole and rotate the engine until you hit the center mark. NOW all of your pistons are in the same position and you can add equal amounts of what you want to into each cylinder. I can't make it any easier for you to understand than this.

 

Haven't gotten my buddy with a compression tester over yet, but I am going to drill out the valve cover bolt that was snapped off and i'm guessing was the problem to why I was going through two quarts of oil per tank.

The gasket looks good, can I reuse it with some rtv red?

And where are the oil drainback holes at under the valve cover? I can't find them...

 

ya can get the valve cover bolt from local salvage yard for free however the gasket id recomend blue rtv its oil safe and i would just recomend a new gasket, there only like 15 dollars tops

 

Damn, Paul. I wish I had known you needed that bolt, but I apparently didn't think about that. I could have sent you one along with the ECTS. If you have any problem finding one, let me know. We can work something out, I'm sure. Maybe you pay the postage and make sure it's enough to buy me a beer!

 

I would not use any RTV on this. My first preference would be for a new gasket, second would be for Permatex "The Right Stuff". It is far superior for oil than any RTV product.

 

Haha damn rub, yea I'll see if I can get it around here free or cheap and if not ill let ya know. I have one of those bolt extractor kits hopefully it works.

Any word on where the drainback holes are? It's a little slushy under there.. but I don't know where to look.

 

It doesn't show them in the FSM, but the drain back holes are going to be somewhere near the cover rail (where the valve cover gasket contacts the head) and generally between each cylinder, somewhere near the head bolts.

Often they are on the exhaust side, but not necessarily. They really should be visible. Pour a can of oil over the head and see where it goes to drain down into the pan. When you see the area, you should be able to drop a long thin screwdriver down into the hole (don't let go if the handle is thin).

If it is so sludgy that you can't see the drain back holes, you do have a problem, just start cleaning out the sludge until you find them.

 

Yep, Keith has a good suggestion on how to find them and the general area of other cars that I have pulled the heads from. I've not pulled the head on a Saturn. YET.

 

after 265k on mine, I haven't even pulled the valve cover off.