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Head gasket Replacement 1991 R129 [VIDEO]

5K views 9 replies 7 participants last post by  Bill SD 
#1 ·
After compression testing my cylinders, I found I was loosing compression on one of the right side cylinders. UGH. and to top it off I had white smoke coming out of my exhaust with the continual loss of coolant. The culprit...yep, you got it, blown head gasket!

I spent weeks doing research, found a service manual, got the parts I needed, and a bunch of new tools, then went to work. I took about 80 hours of work (keep in mind, I'm a non-mechanic, with absolutely no experience working on cars doing this project. so the average car guru could cut that time in half). According to the service manual this job takes around 20 or so hours of labor for a benz certified mechanic.

Anyways, I was able to pull if off, and get my car back together again. Good news is it's running!
To make sure I could actually put my car back together I filmed the entire process and wanted to share the video to possibly help someone else out in the future if they decide to take on this task.

Hope it helps. It's only 58min...not too bad for a complete head gasket replacement!:
 
#6 ·
Well done especially considering the conditions you were working under - open air car park wow.

The valve gear looks immaculate, must have an excellent maintenance regime on correct oil changes. As a matter of interest what coolant are you using and how often is it changed?

Looking at the head gasket it looks like a deformation from a previous repair installation, maybe even the original factory fault:smile

Good luck.
 
#8 ·
My car has 184,000 miles. It was actually given to me last October by a buddy of mine. He said two years ago he was driving really fast and the engine overheated. Once it over heated he had it towed to his house and it sat there ever since. He never had it looked at or anything. Last October he said he didn't want it anymore cuz he was driving a Porsche now so he passed it off to me. I was hoping it wasn't the head gasket that was the problem but it was.

Main issue I'm having now is when starting it cold, it has to crank like 10-20 times then it will start up. Once it's started it will start up on its first crank.
 
#10 · (Edited)
Main issue I'm having now is when starting it cold, it has to crank like 10-20 times then it will start up.
As you were taking the head off did you check condition of any plastic/rubber parts around intake manifold. Mine were brittle and petrofied, this could lead to air leaks around intake / idle control valve that might be the starting issue. Also at this age you might want inspect the injector holders and o-rings. They are cheap and mine were also rock hard.

Also did you reconnect the cold start injector? you probably did (at 28:47 in disassembly) but it feeds the web of rubber parts with idle control valve on top of manifold
 
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