Hi All,

My beloved 260E died last night and I'm trying to get the the bottom of what's wrong before I get my garage to pull the head. The car is a 1990 model with the M103 12V engine, 64000 miles only and all original. Car was running very nicely until last night, we just did 1000 mile round trip to London with no mishaps. Oil pressure at 2 (idle), 3 (under load). No bad noises, lots of power and very smooth. Would sit at 85 all day no problem. Recent timing cover gasket (to solve minor oil leak) and water pump (£££).

Symptoms: car started and drove 1 mile. Turned off and 1 hour later it would not start. Turns freely but will not fire at all. Fuel is getting to the cylinders. The garage have pulled the plugs and there is a spark (slightly weak). The spark at the distributor is stronger but cap and ignition leads are all original so probably could do with being replaced. The garage suggested this as a remedy until they did a compression test and the readings are 150-50-70-120-90-120 (ie. way too low and wildly differing) so they say no point until the compression issue is sorted. He also expressed surprise that it doesn't even attempt to start when they spray fuel in the intake.

I have asked them to do a leak down test and remove the rocker cover for a visual inspection as that may give a better idea.

My thoughts are:

1. Bad valve or valves
2. Bad head gasket (although no water in oil or oil in water, also unlikely to just stop without any symptoms)
3. Bad timing chain/camshafts.

Does anyone have any ideas or experiences with a problem like this? Garage estimates £1500+ to pull the head, fix any problems, do the stem seals, new head gasket, new distributor cap and leads. Clearly I want to eliminate any other things before I do a top end rebuild, and at this sort of money I'd be thinking about selling the car as a non-runner.

Hopefully someone can help?
James.