I just finished my 2007 GL450 head gasket replacement on my right bank. I followed WIS procedures, with the exception of replacing the pulse wheels. Upon first start, I have terrible running (no knocking, banging, did turn over engine, and have verified timing is perfect (also double-checked it by removing front cover of bank1. I also removed the cylinder cover to 1000% make sure I had the timing set correctly after removing the head. One of the intake valves in cylinder 2 needed to be replaced.

I'm wondering if there are any suggestions from anyone on any ideas why it misfires on all cylinders on the right bank, and now gives a P0011.

Bad connection on intake vvt solenoid?
Must the pulse wheels be replaced?
Is the assembly lube I used too thick and causing an issue on the oil flow?
Any other ideas that I could test?

I'm kind of just at a stopping point, so really any ideas, even "out there" ideas would be considered at this point. I've only run the engine for about a minute and then pulled codes - then disassembly of the covers.

Thanks for any ideas!

 

Ok, I think I've figured it out... It appears that the intake cam wasn't fully seated on the intake cam gear pin. I have no idea how, but it was about 1mm out. I realized after looking at it again that the pulse wheel on the intake side looked "washed", with no oil where the magnet in the cover sits. I believe that the magnet was actually in contact with the pulse wheel, which would have caused all sorts of issues. I'm putting it back together and will be starting it later today or tomorrow. Apologies on the silly question.

 

acsavage: How bad of a job was this head gasket replacement? (How long did it take, how expensive, how much of a PITA in general, etc)
Thanks in advance!

 

And what were your symptoms?

 

Hey there, sorry I missed your question this last week.

I have sorted out pretty much all of my issues at this point after doing the right cylinder head gasket. I recorded the entire process, and hope to edit the video and upload to YouTube soon enough.

It's definitely advanced. I've never done a head gasket, and with dual cams, there are a lot of ways this can be done wrong. Having the Mercedes WIS is absolutely critical - not only for the ORDER things must be done in, but also advice on torques, and replacement parts. At this point, I've wrapped up all but one issue - I did not follow the MB advice to replace the pulse wheels on the camshafts, and that was likely my mistake, I may have damaged the intake camshaft pulse wheel in some way, and i'm getting correlation errors (P0016). Otherwise, the engine runs totally smooth now, and no more exhaust gasses in the coolant reservoir. I ended up buying some specialty tools (T60 Torx bit to remove the cams, and the timing guide pin puller are the 2 ones I'm thinking of) Otherwise, just Torx, eTorx, and standard wrenches.

My gasket set was about $150, included valve stem seals, all other gaskets (but only 4 gaskets for fuel injectors, so I bought 4 more (top & bottom). I also had to remove the valve cover twice to troubleshoot, so I bought another tube of sealant ($25), and the head was rebuilt for $245 out the door here in south Orange County, where we normally have very high prices.

Last thoughts... I really took my time, and went very slow. I also tend to be disorganized, so I took lots of time to organize and reorganize as I did the work to ensure I put things back together right - maybe I have ADHD or something because I still didn't seat the intake camshaft to the gear properly, and I also had to replace my exhaust cam gear because I allowed the locking pin that locked the backlash compensating gear to fall out. This meant that I broke the exhaust camshaft gear when turning the engine by hand. I replaced it with non OEM because the price differential was enormous. Had I not done that, I would have saved myself a week and a big headache.

Do you have a head gasket to do?

 

My symptoms were exhaust gases in my coolant reservoir - pushing coolant out of the expansion tank, accompanied by fast near overheating.

Ran compression test, identifying cylinder 2 as having low compression. The block tester with fluid did not point to exhaust gaskets, but I could smell it from the expansion tank. Who knows why? I don't put a lot of faith in those testers after this.