The Mercedes 500 convertable has drive by wire brakes. Now that is scary.

(blinks alot then falls into sezure!!!)

why WHY WHY! ok im gladd we advanced from the model T days where you only had rear brakes and they were all mechanical linkages. then in the late 30's we got hydrolic brakes then power brakes then dual circuit brakes and then it hasnt changed much at all since 1964 till now.... well that lame ABS came about and still ( stupid garbage lol) but the same principles are there. same with steering boxes. is power steering not good enough for lazy USA? now we have to have the wheel turn just by breathing at it :lol:

So I pulled the head off today. A little over 4 hours to get it on the floor, I didn't cuss once and I don't have any bloody knuckles. (what's wrong here?) Luckily, there were no frozen or stripped bolts.

If the machine shop in town is open tomorrow, I'll take it to have the head resurfaced (if it needs it) and a valve job. I ordered an entire HF engine gasket set off Ebay for $29 plus shipping, if you can believe that. It's coming from LA so it should be here Tomorrow (UPS delivers on holidays?) or Tuesday.

I'm taking the opportunity to replace all of the cooling hoses that are under the intake manifold. Judging by their condition, they would have blown soon. The fuel return line from the intake manifold was hardened, so it's going to get replaced as well. It would suck to have that one split.

I'm not sure if I'll have it running this week with how much my job wears me out. I do have a few hours of cleaning the top surface of the block and getting a hardened intake manifold gasket off the IM, that should be fun.

My battery was some old Kirkland (Costco) battery that was leaking all over the battery tray. I think I'll check out the garden tractor ones at Wally World. Considering I can get a new radiator off Ebay for about $70 with shipping, I think the old one is going as well. The thought is to get it back together and have done most of the preventative maintenance I could have so I can just drive it for a while. (I just replaced the timing belt/water pump/oil pump in Dec).

The intake manifold scraping is usually the most time consuming part of the head gasket replacement for me.

I tried a ebay gasket kit once before as well. The head gasket quality was good enough to hold (and comparable to the OEM one) but the valve cover gasket as well as the oil pan one left some to be desired. I would recommend squeezing some extra gasket maker sealant b/t the gasket and the head just to try to get it to not leak as long as possible. After less than a year from installing the valve cover gasket, it was leaking everywhere... I used a whole lot of RTV, and no more leaks.

If you have a cutoff wheel, you can also get a heavy wire wheel which screws on in place of the wheel and lock nut. This strips all of the old gasket off in a hurry. I got my cutoff tool from Harbor Freight. It takes a 4 1/2 inch cutoff disk.

So I resurrected the Rex-O-Saurus. The machine shop cost $196 to flatten the head and do a valve job. He said the guides were in good shape. Overall, putting it back together went smoothly. I changed every hose on the IM and all the heater/cooling lines, and replaced the radiator.

I put a 435ca garden tractor battery in to replace the leaky old Costco one that was in there. The former owner had in tied in with bungee cords, so I managed to find an adjustable battery tie down that fit the little battery. The stock battery terminals had been replaced with bolt on universal terminals, so those came off and I crimped 4awg copper terminals on the battery cables.

The one mistake I made was my cheap Ebay gasket set came with a cam seal that wasn't the right one. Considering it was late at night when I got to this point, I thought I'd risk it and see if it would seal - it didn't, I can see a drip of oil coming from the timing belt cover. So I ran down to the dealer today to get a new seal and the orings that go under the cam covers and will have this stuff on there in the next day or two.

The car started on the first try, that was a good feeling.

Still no skinned knuckles?

Can't say that any more. I did cuss a few times as well.

be careful with the aftermarket terminals, esp the bolt on ones, they tend to corrode quickly. a little dielectric grease at all the exposed parts oughta keep em good for a while tho. just something to keep an eye on

yea the top mount battery posts tend to leak/corode for somereason while the side posts dont...