W210 head gasket. Any DIY ?

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Olivier

MB Enthusiast
Joined
Oct 30, 2008
Messages
1,666
Location
Edinburgh
Car
E300 TD
Anyone as a DIY for a head gasket on a W210 E300TD?
Loosing some coolant on a regular basis but canno see any coming out of anywhere?
I'll do a pressure test hopefully this week, this will probably tell the HG is gone.
 
Thank you. It might help a wee bit. Wot a bother and a daunting head to do...
 
Hi Olivier, if you are only loosing a small amount of coolant, it might be worth trying a product called K-Seal K-Seal, K-Tek, QuikSteel, QuikTape, Just-For-Copper for more details. I used this in the Scorpio and it sealed a leak on the water jacket and also sealed a leaky radiator as well!
My local motor factor has it for £9.99 and I'd be happy to get a bottle for you. Might be worth a try and a lot easier than doing a head gasket :)

p.s Still to get glow plugs, will hopefully order them this week as this diesel stuff is costing me a fortune :dk: ;)

Kind regards, Jim
 
Hi Jim,
Thank you. This sound good. It actually sound really good as I am daunting this head gasket change.
I'll do a pressure test this week, this will tell if its the gasket or not , after that if you could get me a bottle of this if I need it I'll be really happy to buy it of you.
The radiator is new I think, I cannot see any leak either?
Buy the way, why would a gasket blow? The car never over heated, I do drive it hard sometimes but itd for his own good. I know there here a lot of pressure there, but why would it blow? Would it be a weakness on one part/ bolt?
All the best.
Olivier
Next week ECP open, this would be one glow plug for me.Hope you get the glows soon too, diesel is expensive. Pfff...
 
Hi

Exhaust all possibilities before taking the head off. If the car wasnt over heated i would doubt that the HG is gone.


Pressure test will hopefully show something simple.
Best of luck

230k
 
Hi Olivier, while I'm far from a Mercedes expert, I've been around cars for many years and I'd agree with 230K to rule out everything else first! Owning a Hillman Imp, I'm quite used to head gasket problems and they can be caused by a number of things, eg, a weak spot in the gasket, a bolt not torqued up properly or even poor workmanship from a previous repair. If it was the gasket, I'd expect one of three symptoms:
1) bubbling in the header tank indicating that the water jacket is being pressurised from a breech into a cylinder.
2) mixing of the water into the oil, usually shown by a build up of a mayonnaise coloured substance on the oil filler cap or on the dipstick if it's bad enough.
3) occasionally signs of water coming out of the exhaust.

Other options for a water leak could be the water pump, heater matrix, radiator, loose hose etc, etc.
I have to admit, I was sceptical about the K-Seal but it gets excellent reviews and it certainly did exactly as it said on the bottle where my Scorpio was concerned and I had no issues for the 30,000 miles I run the car.

Good luck finding the fault and hopefully the head doesn't need to come off!

Regards, Jim
 
There is a guy on here from glenrothes cant think of his name at the moment works in a garage he might be able to help you.
 
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A very sensitive test is to look for traces of exhaust gas in the coolant. Garages "sniff" the coolant headspace using an exhaust gas analyser-very sensitive and easy test to do . Next would be a cylinder compression test for confirmation. Water pump failure is fairly common on high mileage engines so definitely worth checking as suggested above. Sometimes if the auto transmission heat exchange coil inside the radiator rusts through coolant can get into the transmission fluid but normally this shows up with gearbox symptoms and elevated gearbox fluid levels. If your car has a separate oil cooler this won't apply of course.
 
Hiya,
Turbo is not water cooled
Grober, I'll look at the sniff thing next week when the MOT is due, I'll ask the person there if he could do a sniff, but as I am running on veg, I am not sure if he'll get any trace of anything as I don't pollute much.
Alfie, thank you, when you get the name please forward it to me.
Look like there is still some hope :)
 
Very slow leakage sometimes takes place due to slight porosity in the castings.
You'll never see it happening, but the coolant just slowly leaks away.

It was very common on a number of UK cars with Aluminium engine blocks and heads.
We had 3 Rover SD1s (That's masochism for you) and they all did this.

The K-seal should cure it.
I'd give it a go.

Cheers.
Johnsco
 
Olivier, if you decide to DIY it then I'd be willing to give a hand :)

I have a compression tester here too, though I don't think it has any glowplug thread attachments :(
 
K seal on e bay £8 incl p+p got some for a mate the other day.

If youve got pressure youve almost certainly got a hg problem.

I thought the 300td hg were good for ever?



Lynall
 
Olivier, if you decide to DIY it then I'd be willing to give a hand :)

I have a compression tester here too, though I don't think it has any glowplug thread attachments :(

Thank you for this. I might do a DIY after the pressure test if the garage as a proper attachment.
Could this be done in few hours you reckon, or it'll take a whole day?
But first I'll try the K as few suggested, it look OK. I think I have a large leak tho, half litre every 2 days, is that "normal" or big?
Cheers.
 
Olly, picture of my head gasket off the 605, same as yours less one pot. The blue triangle area are the water ways through the block.

You can have two breeches which would cause you to lose water, the one in yellow to the outside which is low pressure (it doesn’t have air being compressed from the piston)

The one in red which is a breech to the cylinder itself has crossed the compression ring part of the HG – if this is the case you should see some pressure building in the expansion tank?


Hope that makes sense.

David


ollyhead.jpg
 
The water rise in the tank a little soon after starting. Would that be that blue/ red spot or just normal expension due to heat?
Cheers.
Olivier
 
Water level rises in the tanks on our 2 cars soon after starting ... Due to normal expansion.
Cheers.
Johnsco
 

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