My '88 300E very clearly blew a head gasket. Coolant vapor from tailpipe and losing water into the internals. When starting it later, it popped and made a loud smacking noise. Do you think I bent a rod or did other damage to a piston/rod assembly? If it's just a head gasket, a valve job wouldn't hurt at this point anyway.

Thanks,
Larry

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Larry Bible
'84 Euro 240D, 523K miles
'88 300E 5 Speed
'81 300D Daughter's Car
Over 800,000 miles in
Mercedes automobiles

Larry, I'll bet that loud noise was the bad cylinder firing a charge by the head gasket. You've got to get the head off anyway, so when you do, measure the deck to piston crown distance with each one at TDC. This will tell you about rod damage (bending). I'm laying my money on a badly blown head gasket with no rod or piston damage. I'll bet ya!!
BTW, Donnie told me the bottom end of the M103 is really strong. Keep a stiff upper lip, this too will pass

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Jeff Lawrence
1987 300e
1989 300e
2000 Dodge Grand Caravan SE

[This message has been edited by jeffsr (edited 07-31-2000).]

jeffsr,

This is the kind of encouragement I was looking for. One of the most valuable things about MShop is the vast experience base. With the encouragement that there is probably not any bottom end damage, I will proceed.

Thanks and have a great day,
Larry

Larry,
If it is any consolation to you at all, my father once had a new Chevy (6) sound like it exploded when he tried to start it one cold morning. Head gasket leak, hydrolock and a blown head gasket. After cleaning things up to get the anti-freeze out of the crankcase and replacing the head gasket, it ran fine. Hope your situation turns out to be no more of a problem than that.



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Ted
1979 240D
160,000 miles