andrew c230k

The original 2008 antifreeze was yellow color, the new antifreeze is blue... blue+yellow= green my car burnt up 8L of coolant before I figured out what was going on. My car only had 35,000 miles on it or 57,000km

Also Mercedes does not use studs in these engines, there is one aftermarket solution weistec/arp stud they are about 4 times the cost of the bolts alone. They are good insurance but for my usage not worth the additional money. even if I was running a blower I might trust these new bolts but then again maybe not given the situation with the old poorly designed bolts.

The problem with these bolts doesn't seem to be a mileage related issues to me its a time frame thing they are just interesting that 2016 seems to be the year of the head bolt most of these cars are roughly 6-8 years old and they fail. Mercedes knows the cause it's more then just poor design as the bolts are coming out of most engines rusty... there is more going on then we know.

Jasonoff

I have green as well since I did my thermostat a couple years back.

AMG3.2

Probably why replacing them via bolt by bolt method has been (knock on wood) successful so far if you do it prior to them failing.

Take it back and have the shop listen. Mine are pretty dang quiet at this point.

Vladds

I'm aware that the M156 has bolts only, never studs for the heads, except for aftermarket.

The background of my question regarding the heads is that I only separated non Mercedes stud fastened heads. I wonder if bolt fastened heads like the M156 are easy to separate once the bolts are out of the way, as they don't wedge into the studs.
I thought that separating the heads is hard work, as you have to convince them to move, but not damage them at the same time.

Vladds

Merc, so you know of others that did bolt by bolt on M156 and are running them for a while now, without problems?

Merc63

Yes I've done a couple here and my mechanic buddy has done lots now. What would go wrong I don't get what people are worried about...

Jasonoff

They're worried about potentially upsetting the HG with 1 of 10 bolts removed which is a legit concern.

Unless you can load up a 3D model of the head and block in some sort of stress analysis software to verify, we won't really know if 1 bolt removed will do anything.

AMG3.2

Yeah - this for sure.

Even though with 9 other bolts holding things in place with tremendous force, I still let my imagination wander.

Vladds

This is something more often done in the Duramax diesel forums.
The diesel has quite a higher compression ratio, but I see one instance of blown head gasket after a bolt by bolt like 2000 miles later.
Many seem to be fine.
Again, much higher compression ratio and force fed with really high pressure.
The supra people look like they are doing this too.

bhamg

I guess no further update is a good thing...congrats AMG3.2!

AMG3.2

Ha! Yeah, everything seems to be working fine.

Jasonoff

Here's mine after 5-6min. Vid starts at the 5min mark.

I want to give it another go with my mitty vac connected to draw more air through (don't want to mess with a vac line). Did yours bubble this slowly as well? I'm just concerned about a false positive.

AMG3.2

So mine actually have a little pump thing at the top to suck up air from the resevoir. Basically a turkey baster design like this. http://contentinfo.autozone.com/znet...27145/image/3/

Also, what do you mean false positive? Is blue considered exhaust vapor for your tester fluid?

I didn't see anything change...

Jasonoff

I have the 7550 that you connect to a vac line. http://www.lislecorp.com/divisions/p...s/?product=406

False positive, as in, not enough gasses passing through to change the fluid colour even if there's combustion gasses in the cooling system. No idea how sensitive that fluid is.

Without negative pressure in the cylinder tube it was bubbling slowly which is why I want to give it another try with my mittyvac connected.

AMG3.2

Oh gotcha. Yeah, I'd think you'd want to be sucking air in there either with a Mityvac attachment or with the little siphon pump thing.

This is the one I used in the video. Around the 6:18 mark, you can see a good amount of air coming through each pass. This is what I did for 4 minutes as opposed to just sitting it on top. To your point, I could probably see that being less thorough

AMG3.2

Update: About 320 miles in and running strong...

Vladds

This is great. The VDC code never came back?

AMG3.2

Never came back.

Only thing I can think of is some sort of electrical gremlin due to disconnecting the battery...

Vladds

Nah, I'm working on replacing the intake manifold gaskets and did not even disconnect the battery, just so that I don't bump into this problem, but got the same outcome, no ABS, VDC.

AMG3.2

Strange. I couldn't clear it with a regular scanner. Only STAR seemed to do the trick.

Jasonoff

2010 with 115K km (71k miles). They're not as bad as I was expecting. Looks like at some point they started putting sealant on the thread.

Right Bank






Left Bank

andrew c230k

Was wondering how you made out this weekend. Any cracks under the bolt caps or caved in driver areas from over stretching?

My 2008 had tread sealant as well

Jasonoff

Nope, they were all fine. The closeups above are of the worst ones. A couple of them looked good enough to resell lol.

AMG3.2

Nice. Looks like we both got lucky.

Are you still mid project?

Jasonoff

Unless there's 20 more bolts to go.