My son called me and said his car over heated and smoke is coming out the exhaust now. He also told me that it over heated a few times, so now when it warms up it smokes out the exhaust. I think I know what the problem is, I just want to hear what you guys think. (headgasket?) Is there anything else that it could be? Thanks.

Is it white smoke? If so, means coolant in combustion chamber = headgasket

__________________
http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z...-RESIZED-1.jpg
1991 300E - 212K and rising fast...

Yes, white smoke.

Time to replace the head gasket. How many miles on the car? If he overheated it several times I would want to make sure the block is still okay and not cracked.

__________________
1989 300CE

An iron block is going to be very hard to crack. More than likely the aluminum cylinder head will need to be checked for straightness by a machine shop. No biggie.

__________________
http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z...-RESIZED-1.jpg
1991 300E - 212K and rising fast...

Its got over 200,000 miles on it, I planed on taking head to a shop.

You to also fix the cause of overheating too! If your doing head gasket, may as well so water pump while it's all apart.

Plan on doing it yourself, or handing it off?
If yourself, make sure to not do it the tedious way removing all fuel system!

__________________
2016 Monsoon Gray Audi Allroad - 21k
2008 Black Mercedes E350 4Matic Sport - 131k
2014 Jeep Wranger Unlimited Sahara - 62k
2003 Gray Mercedes ML350 - 122k

If I dont remove the intake how do you take it to the shop to have them check it? And how do you clean the bottom of the head with all that stuff hooked to it? (Yes I plan on doing the work myself)

How???

You disconnect at the intake manifold, and push it to the side. You leave ALL fuel system intake without disconnecting basically anything. It saves hours of work and avoids more issues with reassembly. The CIS-E system is finicky enough as it is, the more you can leave alone the better.
If you are not rebuilding the head, you don't even have to mess with timing either since you can keep the timing sprocket and chain and push it out the way also like I did. No messing with belt tensioner, nothing. Its super speedy.

You basically just disconnect the wire harness connectors that go to the temp sensors, and that's it.

Like this-

__________________
2016 Monsoon Gray Audi Allroad - 21k
2008 Black Mercedes E350 4Matic Sport - 131k
2014 Jeep Wranger Unlimited Sahara - 62k
2003 Gray Mercedes ML350 - 122k

Great, thankyou.