Are you saying #14 heads are all they're cracked up to be?

Sixto
87 300D

"ba-dum-bum"

__________________
Dean

Well, sho 'nuf, there was moderate pressure on the cooling system with the car completely cold. I could feel it in the top radiator hose. Same symptom showed itself when I opened the expansion tank; a moderate pressure release. Seem to be losing about an inch of coolant as measured at the expansion tank in 50- to 75 miles of driving. No overheating, but she does run 10 or 20 degrees hotter at all times, compared to a few months ago. Not seeing any coolant on the ground.

I'm not seeing any good explanation for this except the head/gasket. I had only heard about head problems on the 350SDL, not on the 86-87 300SDL, so now I'll look into the "14" head issues.

thanks everyone.

Retention of pressure in the cooling system after cool down is more typical of a cracked head. Do not ask me why as I am not sure of why this is so. I could only speculate.

There may be exceptions that it is just a head gasket. The odds do not favour that though. Sounds like you are getting a grip on the problem anyways.

I wish for your sake it is just a head gasket. The odds now of it being just that are very low now in my opinion unfortunatly.

That is just my opinion though. I hope the law of the opinions worth from the perspective of a person posting on a site is kept in mind. Being questionable themselves work in your favour.

I do not know if the ideal of sealing that crack or cracks with an additive is worth discussing or not on site. It did occur to me since the original heads are non repairable anyways for cracking basically. There may be little to lose by trying.

I personally do not like the buildup that occurs in the coolant passages from the stuff. If it did not work the important coolant passages are in the head anyways and it would have to be thrown out afterwards . So you would have uncoated passages in the replacement head.

The second thought was the head is aluminium and the stuff originally was used on cast iron. It can work remarkably well sometimes.

No practicing mechanical garage could take this approach. The results are not predictable enough. Coating of the block passages are not of a signifigant issue as most tranfer of heat occurs in the head region I suspect.

Of course the heater should be not circulating until the stuff has hardened. The larger coefficient of expansion of aluminium versus cast iron is one thing that concerns me. The snake oil is called water glass for a reason. It hardens in the cracks like glass.

I am certainly not advocating this stuff. Yet in a situation where the car was not worth a decent used head I might consider it though as a last fallback type of thing if otherwise the car was going to be written off.

A nothing to lose type of situation for example. In my mind I would have to be certain that other than this attempt the car was boneyard bound..Or at least at this pointin time.

This last section pertaining to waterglass use is my first atttempt for the coming year to get everyone stirred up. It has entered my mind or what is left of it for a long time now. The primary reason I did not really get into it before as people might misuse it. Plus I questioned its application on aluminium heads. Still do.

At this point perhaps the opinion of a company marketing this type of product may be able to present some opinions. Of course they will be biased.Yet perhaps helpful in putting this thought to bed one way or another.

Still I would tend to believe all those sealant types are primarily water glass based. Heat turns them into a glass like substance,

YOU need to read these links before the engine is demolished.
Continuing to run the engine or drive the car will cause further potentially terminal damage.

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