An update.

Its been sitting out back all this time. No one ever wanted enough parts off it to make it worthwhile to strip out, and no one wanted to buy it for more than peanuts. But it ran and drove (sorta) so I just left it alone. A few months back I saw another 300E sitting behind a mechanics shop, and long story short ended up running a compression test on it. 3 and 4 showed only 90 psi. That and that the car had sat 5 years and had no coolant in it, I walked away.

A week ago I went to look at another one being sold cheap, hoping to find a good motor. More low reading cylinders but this time I noticed vapor escaping from down in the plug hole. I wasnt getting a good seal. Was I condemning good engines with faulty tools? That car had other serious problems over and above poor compression so I walked away.

I finally decided to just pull the head and see. Nothing to lose, right? First thing I noticed was the #3 exhaust gasket was blown out on the bottom side. No biggie, just a notation. I pulled the intake, figuring if I was going to pull the oil pan to pull the piston it may as well be out of the way. So off comes the head and the piston looks perfect? What???? And its a burned exhaust valve??

I scratched my head a bit, while accepting the good news. I guess the air I was hearing was coming from the blown exhaust gasket, not the crankcase.

As we get older and more experienced, all too often we become complacent and assume things, based on our experience, rather than always being inquisitive like we are when we are young.

Im taking the head into town today and am ordering the parts to put it back together. Gotta lot of cleanin and scrubbin and some paintin of parts to do. Heck, I could be driving it by the end of the week. And were eatin crow for dinner.