190E 2.6 oil weep

[Robby]

My 190E 2.6 weeps oil from the front of the engine. I'm not sure exactly where its coming from, but I think its the head gasket directly under the distributor.

The cooling system isn't getting any oil in, and the oil isn't getting any coolant in, so I think the gasket is fine otherwise.

Big question is, is this a well documented problem with this engine, and does anyone know a simple solution? Or should I just get a new hea gasket in there?

Ian - I'm sure you mentioned your 260E doing this.

 

[scotth_uk]

Quite possibly a high pressure oil gallery through the gasket is leaking slightly. Mine did it at the rear of the engine. No real problem, just a slight leak - no oil/water mix. Don't have my engine schematics here anymore to check where the galleries are. :-(

 

[Robby]

I degreased and cleaned it this morning, and took it for a little run.

And it is coming from the head. Bugger.

Coming from, as you said, one of what I presume is the high pressure oil feeds - like thick cast tubes on the engine block.

Ah well I'll give my friendly local garage a call on monday and see what it costs to get a head gasket changed. I know lots of you would just live with it, but oil leaks are one thing I really can't stand having on engines.

Might get change from £200 quid if I'm lucky.

 

[Ian B Walker]

Ian - I'm sure you mentioned your 260E doing this.

Yep sure does. I dont worry about it as I only lose about 1/2 pint every 10,000 miles. Its cool, as long as you dont have any in the cooling system.

Show me to your Mech mate then. Gasket set alone costs £70 from stealers never mind the hours of work required. Count on at least 15 hours solid work. £200 ? .......bring it on lol

 

[Robby]

15 hours work to change a head gasket? Sounds rather excessive, I thought the norm was more like 4 hours. I could do it in less than 15.

The gasket itself is 12.50 from mercedes of gatwick, and the head bolts are 1.50 each from euro car parts - havn't asked the dealer about prices on them yet.

 

[scotth_uk]

I paid around £550 from memory at George Fraser to have the head gasket replaced.

 

[Ian B Walker]

15 hours work to change a head gasket? Sounds rather excessive, I thought the norm was more like 4 hours. I could do it in less than 15.

Robby, without meaning to sound like a smart @rse, I have done a head gasket or two on Mercs and believe me if you are thinking of 4 hours or so then dont make any plans for the next day. Let me explain what usually goes wrong. You will experience great trouble extracting the Timing chain guide rail pins, the tensioner on the side of the block comes off dead easy, but it needs Garth to replace it. You will find that removing the exhaust and refitting it is not to be taken lightly as studs WILL shear off (new studs recomended before refitting head). Inlet manifold is a pig to remove in situe. Even worse to come if you leave it on the head all the wiring / Pneumatics associated with it have to be tagged and removed. Get one wrong and its great fun trying to figure out why your car starts but cuts out at 3000 RPM. And yes these heads are Aluminium, they warp easy and are not as light as you may think. Even on a 4 cyl head it takes two to place it on the block as there are giude pins in the block that connect with the head (they also feed oil to the head) and you cant just push and pull till it slips home. Sorry, genuinley sorry if this offends you. I believe Sp!ke had his 6 pot head gasket done, maybe he could shed further light on this.

Ian

 

[Robby]

Ah right, its a nasty job. Thanks for that Ian.

Well I'll see what the garage quote me, if its silly I'll buy myself a slide hammer and some lifting tackle and work on it next time I have a week off work.

If I DIY i'll probably go for the method of disconnect all the various wires and tubes from the manifolds and labelling everything. Luckily theres nothing to worry about on the exhaust side on mine, just the inlet side.

 

[230K]

Do your valve stem oil seals when you have the head off, it will save you doing them the way i explained to you in the PM

230K

 

[Robby]

Well the garage reckon £300+vat, for about 10 hours labour.

All that to fit a £12 gasket.

So I think I'll do it myself. Sometime. Might give one of those radweld esque oil additives a go first.

 

[V12]

Robby, to give you some confidence i did one on my 190E 2.6 in a day at work, started at 8.30, finished and drove it home just before 5.00.

Granted i may have taken a few apart, but when you know what you're doing it is not the worsed job in the world...

I will always reccomend not lifting it off or placing it on by hand...with the use of a crane it is so simple!

HTH, Ricky

 

[Robby]

I've done a couple of bike top end rebuilds, This is similar, just everything times 6.

Ah well, I'll order the parts and do it the week after next. I'll sort out crane hire as well, seeing as they cost a bit to buy.

If it all cocks up, I'll hit it with a leafy branch.

 

[Robby]

Started work on it today.

My theres a lot of bits and peices connected to the inlet manifold. I have all them disconnected and labeled.

The little pin on the timing chain guide was easy, came out with one tap of the slide hammer. It was fun getting the rad off so I could get the slide hammer into position though.

The rear exhaust manifold bolts look rather hard to get to, so instead I undid all of the manifold bolts on the cylinder head. Most came out with the studs too, I still have about 3 studs left in the head, so I'll be trying to free them off tomorrow.

Basically its al ready for me to undo the head bolts and lift the head off tomorrow. Nothing about the job is particularly difficult or fiddly, but it all takes time.

 

[Dieselman]

At least you've done the hard work. Reassembly should be easier than dissasembly.

Well done you will have saved a small fortune.

 

[Robby]

All done. Sort of.

Reassembly was easy, apart from the exhaust manifolds. Which will now need some attention. I snapped a bolt holding the front manifold onto the downpipe, so i'll have to get another couple of bolts, get the whole front manifold off, and put it back on properly.

All a bit of fun. The rest of it seems ok, although I think I have a leaking coolant pipe. Its not going into the oil, which is good.

 

[V12]

Well done...only one hiccup!

Ricky

 

[Robby]

Further investigation has showed that I broke one of the bolts securing the manifold to the downpipes. I'll take the front manifold off in the morning and do the job properly. Going to replace the rear coolant pipe when I'm at it, and chuck some decent radweld type stuff in to find and fix and more leaks.

Now to poke my driveshaft...

 

[Robby]

Balls. Killed it.

Sorted out the exhaust today, started it up to check if it was blowing. All ok. Let it warm up, and some knocking noises started coming from the engine. Let it run a bit more, and lots of white smoke started coming out the back.

Ah.

Stopped the car, coolant level had fallen and there was some mayonnaise under the filler cap.

So tonight I'm going to buy a car to get me around until I can fix my merc. And I think I'll buy a bmw 320i, to see what its like.

I hate it when things like this happen.