Dead cylinder on '84 190E 2.3

[bigbrownbenz]

So, about two weeks ago while flying down the highway to work (about 75mph), I felt an abrupt power loss (about 20-30%, i'd say, not a total loss) and the engine started running like a lawnmower. Opened up the hood and discovered (by pulling the plug wires) that cylinder #2 was not firing.

After a new distributor cap, plugs, and wires, still same symptoms. (Damn!) Ran a compression test to find out that cyl2 was only pushing about 10 lbs of pressure.

My mechanic (who is very honest and reliable, but not a MB specialist) tells me that the engine will need to be rebuilt/replaced. Anyone have similar problems with '84 2.3 engine? (Minding that the '84 engine was unique from the '85 and above).