upper end rebuild
 

I am thinking about rebuilding the head on my 86 300e mainly due to oil useage, it has 115000 should the guides need replacing and the timing chain also? are the guides the type you beat out? thanks] 83 300d turbo drove for 14 years(sold but still running around town

Except perhaps for the high miles, I see nothing in your post that convinces me the head needs to be rebuilt. Your oil useage may be somewhere else (piston rings, drippage). Usually the valve guides need replacing when you get a puff of smoke upon taking off from a stop. Is this a symptom you're having? What is your oil consumption rate? I'd hate to see you take on a job that may be too early to tackle.

every 1000 so far, I bought the car in march, the car only ran 1500 in the last year, I had to drive the car 250 home after the sale and it used a quart, then I changed the oil and in a 1000 another quart and now its coming up on another 1000 and its down again, I need to take another long ride and see how it does before doing anything. i might just do the seals and a chain

Try the valve seals first...
 

if that does not work, you may have to go for the head rebuilt. The head does not have to come off for valve seals, that means less $$$. Are you doing it yourself?

If you are not slobbering oil out the exhaust or if the oil is not fouling your plugs then remember that for a car that is only driven a few thousand miles per year a few quarts or oil is considerably cheaper than a valve job.

I drove my 450slc from Texas to Canada to Fla. and home and used about i qt. every 1k miles at 70 mph. I put about 7k miles on it and maybe used 10 qts. At $1.25 a qt. that is cheap driving. I don't like the fact this uses oil but I would not like spending $1K for a valve job even more.

kip's right, oil is cheaper than a head rebuild. I'm not sure about MB but other manufacturers specify that oil burning has to be as bad as 1qt/500 miles before action must be taken. I'm guessing that once it reaches that rate, other factors come into play (e.g., fouling of plugs, converter, O2 sensor, cost of oil, other soot problems) where it makes more sense to rectify the oil burning issue.

I will take another long run, maybe 500 to 1000 miles if I use more than a quart I will pull the plugsif no problems I will do seals, what about the timing chain is it due, that was one thing I liked about the diesel I never even thought about touching it, although I did the chain at 180000

The chain in these cars (124's) are very robust...
 

for what I read from the pro's in this site, they rarely need to be replaced. However, you can check the chain stretch and determine if it truly needs replacement.

the diesel valve timing was set by the chain so they sell offst keys until the chain is so stretched that it needs replacement, I don't know it this motor is the same yet

You may also want to consider using one of the "high-mileage" oils for cars with more than 75,000 miles. A lot of brands offer these oils now. The so-called conditioners are supposed to soften and swell hard seals.

I changed to the Valvoline MaxLife in the 300E. Oil consumption declined from 1 qt every 800 miles to 1 qt every 2,200 miles. I was impressed. It isn't a cure for bad valve stem seals but it can slow the consumption down. The 300E has 210k miles and has never had the head off. I do believe the guides and valve stem seals were updated in the 90-91 cars though.

Keep us posted,

Haasman

I am a valvoline man and just bought 5 cases of 20-50, I will try it for the next oil change, thanks