Hey everyone.

Well, atm i'm in a bit of a rut. My car has a blown head gasket so I have to order a head gasket replacement kit (I sourced one in Australia ) which I will soon order.

Anyway, are there any other things I should replace while I have the head out. I've got a replacement timming chain on the list, but what about seals and other things?

Manya,

Unless they've been replaced recently, I'd do the valve stem seals and the cam oilers. Both are rather inexpensive parts and pretty easy to install, especially once you already have the heads off.

BTW, I'm assuming that you're going to do the timing chain guides and tensioner as part of that project. Again, once you're that far into the engine, they're pretty easy.

jlc

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Jeff

'87 560SEL 267K (177K on motor) Blue/Blue
'98 Buick LeSebre 60K (wife's car)
'56 Imperial Sedan 124K
Past Cars:
'67 Dodge Monaco 130K (Sold)
'87 Chrysler 5th Ave 245K and going strong (sold)
'73 Plymouth Satillite 175K (sold)
'96 Chrysler LHS 80K (totaled)

Manya,
Since you have gone through the effort to remove the head, if it were me, I would go ahead and do a valve regrind and maybe also replace the valve guides (maybe with silicone bronze). This of course in addition to your already planned valve stem seals, timing chain, tensioner,cam oilers and chain guides. I hope you were able to find a head gasket at a reasonable price as some are quoting as unreasonably high as $200 US. I am assuming that your engine has accumulated considerable mileage to warrant the suggestion. I just pulled the head off of my 220SE to discover a burnt/defective valve and will be doing the aforementioned work.

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You might as well replace the head bolts and get a bottom tap to clean the threads in the engine block. In case you didn't know a bottom tap is not tapered towards the end. This will allow the tap to clean the threads all the way to the bottom and will ensure that your head bolts are good and tight.

Also make sure that your ballstuds on the head are not loose.

You might also want to get the rockers polished as well as your camshaft. Check the camshaft towers for grooves on the interior circular part where it touches the camshaft.

Also when I did this I rpelaced the engine mounts.. seems like a good time to do it since the exhaust manfifold won't be in the way of the passanger side mount.

The main issue is why did it blow the gasket? If the cooling passages are erroded this can easily happen again. Was the car running at a normal temp or was it allways kind of hot? What lead up to the gasket blowing?

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MB 72 250 M130.923 114.011 170k The Beauty