M104: Gasket Replacement P.6

Prepare for many photos of progress on this M104 headgasket job

While not related, the trans cooler lines on the car were full of oil and generally just ready to go. So they're replaced with new Contitech lines from AutohausAZ.

They sure look good compared to the old, most likely original, lines that were on the car.

Got the radiator and shrouds back in, along with all the coolant hoses throughout the engine bay.

The car has the air pump removed and the associated vacuum lines removed as well. All the red marks I made are of parts that have been removed or blocked off. Blue are vacuum lines that are present in the engine bay and functioning.

Installed the EGR vacuum pipe onto the valve cover with new silicone vacuum hose routed to it.

Close up of the freshly cleaned pipe.

The wiring harness had a few broken connectors near the EGR/Air pump switchover valve.

So the plugs have been replaced.

Wiring harness installed

Slowly looking like a complete engine!

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M104: Gasket Replacement P.5

Made considerable progress today. Front of the engine is mostly assembled save for a pulley or two.

All that remains are the intake manifold, exhaust manifolds, block drain, rear crank sensor and for me to put the wiring harness in place once everything is buttoned up. The following pictures are rare glimpses of oil free M104 engines. They're nearly impossible to find in the wild.

I wrinkle painted the alternator/air pump bracket as well as the coolant crossover pipe in front of hte engine. They were both huge eyesores and this way, they'll be harder to spot in the mess of things.

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W210: rear bumper, finally

As you can see, the rear bumper in the car was FUBAR. Previous owner decided to make a cutout into the stock bumper to fit his rigged straight pipe since the muffler fell off. 

Well, now there's a muffler and the proper rear bumper! Looks 1000x better than it did before. Fixing the mistakes of idiotic, cheap people makes this car worth it in the end. 

Also fixed the botched rubber fuel lines and I can officially say there are no more air bubbles flowing through the fuel system. Successful day. 

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M104: Gasket Replacement P.4

Lower to upper intake connecting boots. 

Test fit the headgasket to make sure it doesn't have some sort of defect.

 Test fitting after installing the oil/PCV system underneath.

Close up with copper exhaust manifold nuts

Intake side

 New crankcase breather gaskets for the crossover tube.

Fitted the new hoses here with the clamps in similar orientation. They were facing all sorts of directions and it was pissing me off royally to loosen them.

EGR tube clogged up

Cleared out

A close up of the exhaust manifold side.

Intake boots installed and everything cleaned up. New vacuum fittings installed as well as some were cracking. The vacuum system on this car will be in tip top shape for many many years to come. This engine should outlast the rest of the car.

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M104: Gasket Replacement P.3

Head straight off the engine - flipped it over to check for cracks. Thankfully, there were none.




Cylinders 5 & 6

Cylinders 3 & 4

Cylinders 1 & 2

Block after head removal

All the old exhaust manifold studs had the nuts frozen on to them. So putting each stud in the vice and heating up the old copper nuts with a torch helped get them free. Working them back and forth slowly with WD-40 getting squirted on them made life easy. Got the new copper nuts on and they sure look good.

Head completely cleaned of sludge and all the grime. Sludge was blocking many of the oil passages and even the return at the front of the head. Was to the point where oil would be able to pool and not drain correctly from the head to the crankcase. I'm willing to bet this lack of drainage is what sped up the sludge.

 Nice and clean.

Close up of the new copper nuts and new updated exhaust manifold gaskets.

Going to do a better job of cleaning the block tomorrow and the head will be ready to put back on. Excited to get this car out of the garage and back on the road. This engine won't need any work outside of oil changes for a long time to come......... Hopefully.

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M104: Gasket Replacement P.2

Was on a nice trip to Southern Florida in the passed week, so I've resumed work on the M104 headgasket. Head is about ready to come off, I'm only waiting for my new Snap On triple square bits to come in since I regretfully loaned out my Hazet tool. 

Anyway, pics:

I'm going to be pulling the lower cover today as well once I put my flywheel lock tool in place. Engine is getting a full reseal along with new timing guides/chain with the headgasket. This thing won't need to be opened up for a long time.

You can see a bit of the sludge that's collected in the recesses of bolt heads. This head HAS been off once before and shows signs of being cleaned and skimmed. I'm going to have to put this sludge down as infrequent oil changes.

I cleaned some of the sludge out of the headbolt. There was quite a bit of it. I'm going to clean up the head as much as I can and run some trans fluid through the engine once all is buttoned up and I'm done running the break in oil. Should help clean out the crankcase a bit. I'll make sure the owner is more frequent on their oil changing and using a higher quality oil.

 Everything on the upper timing cover here was caked in oil and an overdose of RTV. A razor blade, wire brush and brake cleaner made short work of the grime.

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