Okay, I hear you both and thanks for posting up. Have either of you ever owned a car with this engine in it? I would not think that the piston bores are bad as the car started up perfectly fine with only 3 of 6 glowplugs working (state of condition when I bought it)............. if compression was out of tolerance, I would think it would have trouble starting or at least it would sputter and spit and vibrate. Despite the glow plug issue, this vehicle did neither.

Mechanic said the injector cause the gasket blowout, result of good compression and nowhere for the fuel to go... there is not any oil in the antifreeze nor antifreeze in the oil so I think there won't prove to be any cracks in the head.

I'm going this far with it, if that doesn't fix it or the odd sounds don't go away then this baby is headed for trade-in. As odd as this may sound, it actually runs great at highway speeds and the passenger compartment is so insulated that you actually cannot hear much if any engine noise without really tuning your ear.... it accelerates good, a/c blows cold... I think Mercedes blew it by switching away from the 617 engines though... my 1984 300D was bulletproof and was for the most part a joy to DIY on the routine maintenance stuff. Loved that car. Hope that proves to be the case with this rascal too...........if I can get these first bugs worked out of it.

Thanks for the replies... I appreciate.

JMH