Not too bad for $500 off Craigslist. While waiting for the head to come back and the parts to arrive in the mail I painted everything body color (199). I don't care for the two tone and I despise chrome so it had to go.

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190e 3.0 5spd Zender black on black plaid
1973 280

That brown sludge looks more like never having the coolant changed than any type of sealer. If this motor goes back together, on the block side clean out the coolant holes / slot between the cylinders.

This was not run with a coolant to cylinder leak very long, the combustion chambers in cyl 3 and 4 are still way to dirty. Given the pictures I'd say a sudden coolant to cylinder leak cause compression to go high and preignition to nibble away at the piston tops only in the quench areas. ( Quench is an area where the piston comes up to the cylinder head and nearly touches, this action stirs the mixture in the combustion chamber. ) This is only if the rod bearings are good on cyl 3 and 4.



Looking at the head, cyl 2 and to a lesser extent 5, they are running rich / drippy injector.

For my push on the piston test to be valid you must turn the motor so the piston is headed down the bore ~ 1 1/4" the push down on the piston. Checking at TDC will only pickup the bearing being completely hammered out.

Since this is your car and not a customers, putting it back together if rod bearings are good is an acceptable risk. The only other risk would be loss of piston ring tension from overheating leading to oil consumption. All it costs is a couple of gaskets and time to give it a try.

I confirmed with the seller that he did use some Block-Seal in it. The car had good maintenance history prior with the first owner, second owner not so much. Coolant was changed five years ago according to the paperwork, of course there is always the possibility it wasn't actually changed.

I'm familiar with what the push-on-the-piston test should feel like if the rod bearings were gone and it didn't feel like that at all, very firm at all piston heights on all pistons.


I did find a bag full of injectors in my storage unit from years ago, I'll test them all and install the best ones. Found a bag of new insulators and seals too!

In the mean time I've completely taken everything on the intake apart for cleaning, testing and lubing. Also cleaning every inch of the engine bay while I have the head out of the way. I hate dirty engine bays.

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190e 3.0 5spd Zender black on black plaid
1973 280

Nice work

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Prost!

The engine is beautiful.

Good job. I bought my E320 in the same sort of shape with a blown head gasket. I decked the head and it ran for about a month but had tons of blow by and I just swapped the whole engine. I have a hookup for parts cars here and paid $300 for a engine and harness delivered.

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Current fleet:
1995 C36
1989 190E 2.6 5 speed
1974 450SLC
1988 5.0 swapped Supra

Very nice!
Love the body cladding, sharp.
Frame those engine Picts!

Nicely done.

X6 (but it does need more chrome!)

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!

Thank you everybody! I had it driving great for a couple of days, then noticed a small coolant leak on the back of the block. The block heater freeze plug decided to start leaking (bad o-ring I'm guessing) and I'm having a bear of a time removing it. The hex head on the plug just tore when I torqued a socket on it so I've got a lot of chiseling and prying to do to get it off. Wish I knew about this when I had the head and exhaust off the car!

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190e 3.0 5spd Zender black on black plaid
1973 280