[bigirishk]

WOW,

This sounds really familiar!! I pulled off the head with the leaking head gasket 2 weeks ago and was also greeted with a pitted underside on the suspect cylinder. This is definitely from an earlier rebuild in my case, but my buddy and I rotated the engine around and took hold of the piston top. We could wiggle it back and forth WAY TOO MUCH. We didn't get a mic. on it, but It's got too much play. The Johnson has an inspection plate up on the cylinder wall that we removed and looked into. We could get a little flathead screwdriver on the rings and they would wiggle back and forth with too much play. This baby was about to let go, and the dead ignition to that cylinder (coil pack) was saving me a tow to the dock.

Unless yours is just a simple blown head gasket (coincidence that it's the old blown cylinder that blew again?) I'm in the same boat as you :(