Rebuilt OM603: Head Gasket Failure.

[turbobenz]

I rebuilt an om603 about two years ago. New liners, everything. #20 head. Had the head milled and blocked decked when they did the liners. I used a victor reinz organic gasket. Thing ran great for two years, i mean really good. I was gonna build it up and make power but I decided it was good enough (coming from 617) and I just appreciated the potential reliability. Past few months Ive been using coolant and thought it was my rad, or something in the engine bay. I could smell the coolant when I would walk in front of the vehicle so I just kept adding coolant and planned to do a bunch of heater hoses and stuff soon anyway. It then started activating my coolant light every other time I drove. I found a small bit of pressure in the system in the morning and just got pissed. Sure enough last weekend the car was just running a bit warm but it was a cool day. On the way back home I held 85 up a few hill climbs into the foothills, never hitting full throttle but noticed temp rising quick and realized it really is a bad hg. Got home and it idled like ****. Could not restart then puked water out tailpipe and ran ok. so i let it burn the steam off, relieved it of pressure and drained block. Got the head off and #1 had a clear breach into a coolant passage. The fire rings on 1 and 2 looked like soot had creeped under them. I don't know what I did wrong! New bolts, planed surfaces no overheats and a #20 head. Maybe its the victor reinze gasket. Maybe the compression ratio got two high?

So I ordered a MLS om606 gasket from the dealer, 2nd repair size. I got it ($205) and Im pretty worried about a few things. I have to drill about 6 holes for coolant and don't know best way to do it. I borrowed a hole punch set (type you hammer in) but I'm not sure this is going to do the trick. I plan to start a small hole and put a conical burr into it to enlarge it. Theres also an oil passage im worried about at the front of the head. Im also really worried by the fact that the rubberized sealing compound is worn off the gasket from the cardboard packaging. $200 gasket and they cant zip tie it in place or some ****.

I was reading on STD about this but theres not much. its all conflicting info. Some say it works just drill holes and others say the expansion slots between cylinders on the 603 will always leak. One guy posted a head picture but he must have a later head without the milled in oil passage mine has. It just doesn't look like the 606's gasket, with its crimped areas, is going to seal this timing chain tensioner oil passage to the outside of the block. I also read one guy saying even the 606 repair size is thinner than the original 603 gasket. I bought the 1.81mm

I need the sd back on the road asap to commute to work. Im thinking Ill drill the holes and see what happens. it'll probably fail soon but maybe we''ll all learn something and its a pretty easy head to remove. Anyone done this?