Blown
 

Hi

Iv'e got a 230e with a blown head gasket,one guy's told me not to use the car at all,for fear of "blowing up" the engine completely,(if I can avoid it),another had said I can as long as I keep an eye on the level in the expansion tank and keep the collant topped up.
Can anyone tell who's right/wrong?,any advice is greatly appreciated.

Regards

"Blowing up" is usually used to describe a severe and expensive failure. It will not actually explode.

If the head gasket is leaking coolant into the cylinder you have a problem. Cranking the engine with one cylinder full of coolant can "hydrolock" the engine, usually resulting in a broken piston or bent connecting rod. You will have just "blown up" the engine.

There are many other types of headgasket failures (recently classified by Stevebfl, I think) that may take a while to become serious. Try a search and you'll find a lot of info.

D.H. is right on...
 

If coolant is leaking into the cylinders that will raise the compression in those cylinders. The question is will it bump it to a performance 11:1 compression ratio, or will it bend up your engine components with a 18:1 compresstion ratio?

It is possible that your head bolts just need to be re-torqued to the proper spec, but more than likely you will need to replace the head gasket.

If there is a chance coolant is leaking into the combustion chamber, heed these words. I saw a Chev engine that had hydrolocked on it's coolant, and it ain't pretty...

Re: Blown
 

A head gasket is typically something that WILL continue to create further problems. Others have mentioned coolant getting into the cylinder. This of course will add to problems. Second, coolant may get into an oil passage. This will cause the oil to thicken into a useless sludge, causing it to sieze, throw a rod, shatter a piston, etc. Also combustion gases can get into the cooling system, over pressurizing it. This can trash water pumps, radiators, hoses, etc.

Seriously, you are being given good avice to park the car untill you can repair it.

Well, my head cyl is now at the machine shop getting cleaned up. I felt like I was living on borrowed time as I constantly had oil in my coolant but no coolant in the oil. (for about 6 months now) Car ran just fine though, and temp never budged above the top of 80c mark. I must have been lucky.

Not sure if my head gasket was "blown" or not, I inspected it, didn't see any clear signs... but then again I have no clue what to look for. Judging by the pics below, I think the head is banana warped from overheating. (carbon and oil in the middle areas) If so it'll be an extra $50 to "bake" it they said.

http://www.members.aol.com/lawnetpfm/103_1.jpg
http://www.members.aol.com/lawnetpfm/103_2.jpg
http://www.members.aol.com/lawnetpfm/103_3.jpg

Good luck...

Looks like a little leak at the exhaust side of the head down at #6, appears to be a little mixing between the water jacket and oil gallery.

I could be wrong though.

For Iodyn
 

Have you done this before? How difficult was it? Any special tools needed?
I will need a valve job soon . I have the MB CD's and it does not seem too difficult to remove the head and send it to the machine shop. According to the CD's and what I read in this site from DIY's and techs it is NOT difficult (except for the front of the engine) but time consuming. Any inside info would be appreciated.
One last thing...Could you please post pictures of the "new" head before and after installation. Thank you!:D

J.H.:

No I've never done this before, but having shop manual and CD I thought I'd give it a whirl. It really wasn't that difficult looking back on it. It is time consuming first time, but the learning curve is over and I could do it in half the time now. The toughest part was getting the intake manifold to separate far enough to remove head. There are two intake manifold support brackets under the manifold that are very difficult to access. Each has two bolts, but you only need to remove one from each. I got one off, but could never get to the second support, but found out I didn't need to.

Also there were many connections that had to be removed that I wasn't aware of. If you have an air pump, the pipe leading to head needs to come out. Exhaust manifold has a support bracket at tranny and another at front of engine that both need to come off. There are a bunch of 6mm hex screws that come out at various spots, get a 6mm hex key socket for these (tranny dipstick bracket, start valve support bracket, and another bracket at rear near firewall driver side) You DO NOT want to strip any bolts if you can help it, so rid bolts of as much grease as possible before you try to remove them. Also, spray some penetrating lube on exhaust bolts well in advance to loosen those suckers up.

I will post a pic of the machine worked head. When I was there dropping mine off, the shop had my exact 103 head on the work bench almost finished. It was beautifully done -- an amazing transformation. Total cost for refurb is $340 with new guides and seals, including valve grind -- money very well spent if you plan on keeping this great engine running for alot longer.

If you decide to do yours, and need any advice at all, please email me without hesitation, I'll help you out with quick advice as I'm constantly checking my email. I'll even send you a photocopy of the shop manual pages that explain step-by-step what needs to be done. Let me know. This offer applies to anyone on this forum.

JohnB

Thanks John!
 

I will keep it in mind. I more thing, did you use a "lift" to raise the head or any other special tools?:cool:

No lift, just brute force. Once you're at that point you start to get excited and some extra adrenaline helps. :p It weighs about 60 lbs without intake connected, not bad at all. Plus you have the cam to hold onto, which makes for easy lifting.

No other special tools, except I had to buy a 27mm socket to turn crank to get TDC and of course you'll need the special tools to remove fan clutch. (counter holder and small socket)

Iodyn