Got the head off today and what a mess. Someone has changed this head before as the r/h head has hydraulic adjusters and the l/h head has mechanical (strike one)! One timing chain guide is new, the inner is about beer-bottle brown, and was only retained with the upper pin, and the hole was so hogged out that I pulled the pin out with my fingers. I lined up the timing mark on the l/h cam and read about 12 degrees on the balancer scale (strike two).

But wait, it gets better! I got out the big a$$ breaker bar and lever to take off the cam sprocket bolt, got my lever jammed through the sprocket so it won't turn, jump on the breaker bar and damn near break my neck! The bolt was barely finger tight. Right about then I started looking for my 30 round magazines...

OK, I finally get the head off and see no break in the head gasket on the #6 hole, strange... I look at the rest of them and the outboard lower portion of #7 looks/feels like the surface of the moon. I see about a 2" portion of the sealing ring dark and pitted so I immediately assume that this thing had been leaking years and years before I got it, water laid up in the #7 cylinder, and rusted the hell out of it. I'd say at least an .040 bore would be needed to clean it up (strike three, you're outa here!!!). This still doesn't explain why I had 0 compression on the #6 hole but I suppose that's all academic right now.

Gonna try to "shame" the bro-in-law into giving me a refund and taking the car back, I'm even gonna toss in new brakes, injectors, and all the rest of the stuff I did, and try to cut my losses. If he won't do that it might languish in the back yard for a few years till I get around to putting in a Chevy 350 w/Turbo 350 trans I have laying around. Or, it may go to the boneyard, I haven't decided yet.

I guess what this boils down to is the car is either gone, or will be non Mercedes powered in another life. That said, this means I have no more need for the Bosch D-Jet Test Set, or 74 FI computer w/MAP sensor. If anybody wants/needs any of these gimme a yell or they'll most likely wind up on e-Bay.

Thanks for all of the help, particular thanks to Peter, without his prodding I would have never made it this far.

Regards,

Justin B.