W126: OM603 #14 Head-Ache, Final

A bit of a delay in post here - the car is finished and cruising around happily. Needs an eventual re-time of the injection pump to get it perfect, but she's running beautifully as of now. 

We'll commence where we left off:

The head is prepped and ready for install. After checking over the new headgasket for any damage I laid it on the block over the guide pins. The new gasket has reinforced oil gallery area as well as reinforced rear corners (a common oil leak point for these long motors). 

A little bit of magic and viola, cylinder head laid in place. I chose to have the exhaust manifold assembly installed rather than removing it like I did with removing the cylinder head. Everything was torqued down on the bench so I'd have a good idea of how everything looks when tight.

Broke out the old West German angle gauge for torque setting. a 15nm tighten, followed by 35nm followed by a couple 90*'s is all it takes to get these heads down.

With that done, a bit of assembly lube on any of the cams mating surface to the head and torquing it down. Chain sprocket attached with the new upper guide visible in this pic. I replaced the tensioner rail as well, as it was easy to get to while I had the head off.

Valve cover and turbo installed.

Can somewhat see the cleaned up turbo here as well as the ceramic painted manifold.

Installing everything else. I don't have a complete engine shot, go figure. Looks damn nice with the refinished cylinder head, cleaned injectors, etc all in place. Damn near a brand new looking engine.

For future reference, I leave the intake manifold off the engine when I'm first starting the motor - this gives me an opportunity to watch the intake valve area for any problems and give me a nice vantage point for any leaks that may occur while the engine heats up for the first time.

In this case, cylinder #5 had no compression at all upon first start (mixture of lifter problem from cleaning and valve not quite seated) and was blowing fuel out of the exhaust and intake areas. I raised the idle of the motor to around 1.2k rpm and after about 10 minute of running and some heat everything settled in and the engine idled smoothly. In case this happens to anyone else, let the motor heat up some before shutting it down and tearing into it to find any problems.

For now - this OM603 should get another 100k and beyond without much problem.