What a day of highs and lows this was
Started off bright and early by heading to the garage with a jerry can to get some petrol. Wife reckons I'm being heluva optimistic haha
Get home and get to work. Connect fuel lines, put the front wheels back on the car. I notice they are very toe-in, so just adjust it to what looks straight-ish, slightly toe-out. Carry on with the wiring, and after a while I am ready to connect to the battery. First connect the positive, and cautiously tap the negative terminal to the battery. No sparks, flames or smoke - good

. Connect the terminal and get ready to swing the motor.
I first turn the ignition on to check for smoke, sparks and flames - no problems. I hear the fuel pump running to prime the fuel line - good. Switch off and on a couple more times to make sure there is fuel in the rail, and I hear the pump taking strain - got the fuel lines on the wrong way... Idjit... Set about switching the lines, and as I remove the one line I get what feels like about 4 gallons worth of 95 octane shot straight in my eyes. Thankfully my wife heard me groaning and realised there was trouble, and quick as a flash she was there to guide me to a tap so I could rinse my eyes out. 5 minutes later I'm back in the garage.
Get ready to crank the motor... Kinda holding my breath before activating the starter.... Engine goes Whum... Then nothing... Battery's flat
Charge the battery while fitting the headlights and sorting that wiring, check the battery with a multimeter and decide it's go-time. After 2 seconds of cranking it bursts to life! Great success! I allow it to idle for a while, check that there are no fluids dripping - all's well. I do however hear a slight noise that doesn't sound quite right, but I'm thinking it'll go away once the motor's settled
Decide I'm going to take it around the block. Hop in, select reverse, I go forwards... No biggie - quick fix that I'll sort later. Push the car out the garage, and proceed out the gate. I'm rather concerned with how dead the car feels, as I have to give it quite a bit of revs and ride the clutch to get up the incline through the gate. Once I'm in the street, I realise I was in third gear all the time. I go from concerned to impressed
Take it around the block using only 3rd & 4th gear. Everything feels good, boatload of torque in this motor. Go back home to sort the gearlever out.
Re-align the gearlever, and now I have all the gears. Arse is itching so we go for another drive. The motor is VERY responsive. Pull away normal in 1st and give it a bit of gas, it breaks traction from about 2500rpm and flies through the rev range. We go across the main road to the sports stadium, as it's quiet and there are some nice tight bends. Really happy with what I feel so far - the arse is fairly loose, but not stupidly. There is still a bit of understeer when you push too hard, but I shouldn't really judge as the wheel alignment is way out
So I get back home and listen to it idle - that noise is still there. Open the oil cap - sump compression... Obviously some blow-by on one or more cylinders. And now the radiator sprung a leak too...
Do a compression test, starting on no 1 - get this:
Now normally when you get this reading on a standard Corsa, that is good. I however immediately knew this is where the problem is. Why? Because this is what I expect and get on the others:
Skuins bedonnerd about this right now
Anyways, here's what it looks like now
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