As much as I love mine, I would be willing to let it go right now for $100k. 
As much as I love mine, I would be willing to let it go right now for $100k.
mndsm wrote:mazdeuce wrote: Honestly, thinking "it's still not as bad as a Biturbo" helps me sleep at night.There has only been one car through my grm tenure that was rated as worse than a biturbo, the land rover freelander. People will at least think of buying biturbos here. No one ever supports the freelander. Ever.
So you are saying I need a Freelander?
mazdeuce wrote: Million Dollar R63. Someday. As much as I love mine, I would be willing to let it go right now for $100k.
I gave you some love on FB on that one.
I saw a white R350 on I-65 tonight and thought of you.
I saw a blue one yesterday (R350)and thought of this thread too. Good to see you are sitting on a million bucks though, just fix it and keep it maintained and in the garage. Yeah that's how GRMers operate
m4ff3w wrote:mndsm wrote:So you are saying I need a Freelander?mazdeuce wrote: Honestly, thinking "it's still not as bad as a Biturbo" helps me sleep at night.There has only been one car through my grm tenure that was rated as worse than a biturbo, the land rover freelander. People will at least think of buying biturbos here. No one ever supports the freelander. Ever.
do it.
m4ff3w wrote:mndsm wrote:So you are saying I need a Freelander?mazdeuce wrote: Honestly, thinking "it's still not as bad as a Biturbo" helps me sleep at night.There has only been one car through my grm tenure that was rated as worse than a biturbo, the land rover freelander. People will at least think of buying biturbos here. No one ever supports the freelander. Ever.
You more than anyone else here to be sure.
Many thanks for this thread. Our family kid hauler for the past seven years- a 2006 R500- "the mommy rocket". We so enjoy this machine that we are constantly searching for an R63 as an upgrade. They are hard to find!
You are doing the right thing to save/upgrade this vehicle. You will have the ultimate family hauler- fast, safe, and very rare. If you don't like the results when you are done- send me a PM and we will work out a trade for our stock R500 plus a big check.
mazdeuce wrote: Honestly, thinking "it's still not as bad as a Biturbo" helps me sleep at night.
I saw an Instagram post on a 63 rebuild the other day, but I can't get the photo to embed. Here's the link:
Thanks to the dealer for scaring this customer into a head Bolt replacement. Probably only need spark plugs and radiator hose seals. Not a single Bolt was loose or cracked but it does have the early bolts so customer still wanted to go through with it. #amg #amg63 #headbolts #amgengine #e63 #212 #211 #s63 #cl63 #cls63 #clk63 #amg problems #mbtech #mbtechlife #leistung #leistungautohaus #autohaus A photo posted by Leistung Autohaus (@leistungautohaus) on Nov 1, 2016 at 5:29pm PDT
Screen shot time. Your future:
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Except mine will be outside the car. Doesn't look so bad though, does it?
Thanks to everyone for their interest and support with this. It's going to be an interesting project.
It will also be a great time to replace the likely worn out motor mounts.
The one on BAT brought 51k!!
mazdeuce wrote: Except mine will be outside the car. Doesn't look so bad though, does it? Thanks to everyone for their interest and support with this. It's going to be an interesting project.
The photo is obviously from a different model, but doing that job in the car doesn't look like my idea of a good time.
But yeah - seeing it all stripped down, it just looks like another motor. NBD. You got this.
Slippery wrote: The one on BAT brought 51k!!
Berk me! Really?
Dude sell that E36 M3 and buy a wagon.
I give you my word as Mazdeuce that I'll sell mine for $35k tomorrow. I'll include the parts list, where you can collect all the parts for a bit over $3k, and you get a DIY R63 for $13k less than that one.
Otherwise I'll just fix it.
Sorry I was looking to buy yesterday or I would have taken you up on your offer
Flying back from the cottage. It's amazing how being 1500 miles away from the problem for a couple of days is calming.
I'm ready to drop in the anchors for the lift and start taking things apart.
Wow - I think I read thru most of this soap opera - all 23 pages worth - an adventure for sure.
Since I'm a super cheap SOB, I think I would invest in a Harbor Freight bore-a-scope, a leak down tester, and a cooling system tester. Even though reaching the plugs will be a beeyatch, I'd want to pull all of them, then pressurize the cooling system, then do some boroscope investigation of each cylinder. I'd sure want to know where to look for head gasket issues before I remove the motor - because then it's really hard to seal and pressurize the cooling system. You could also run a leak down test on the bad cylinders and look for bubbles in the rad.
I'd also like to know what "radiator hose seals" are - as mentioned by the MB Tech above - and how their failure could look like a head gasket. Maybe the car mentioned above just had coolant loss - but not coolant in the oil or cylinders? I can see where the intake manifold gasket water passage seals could fail - and that would dump coolant down into the valley/crankcase - but it wouldn't get into the cylinders, make steam, and set misfire/02 sensor codes. My guess is still head bolts and gaskets - but at least bad bolts sounds a heck of a lot better than bolt threads pulling out of the block. Mazduece - I'm in Austin and would be willing to pitch in for day to help you diagnose it if you want - I'm far from MB Certified, but my dad used to be a plumber, so I've got a Bitchen Set of Tools :)
Talking to the AMG tech is sounds like there are a lot of ways for coolant to get out of the system, but really only one way for it to get into the motor. At least one common one. It could always be something like a cracked head, but I won't find that until I'm inside. It could in theory be the oil cooler or something but it sounds like because oil pressure is higher than coolant pressure a failure like that would lead to oil loss into the coolant and not coolant into the oil. I will check things all along the way. To make sure I'm fixing the right problems.
How are you feeling before the project begins, would you do it all over the same at this point? Thanks for sharing all the projects, & good luck with another. Time to start making notches in the new lift, or maybe just tally marks
hvoxi wrote: How are you feeling before the project begins, would you do it all over the same at this point? Thanks for sharing all the projects, & good luck with another. Time to start making notches in the new lift, or maybe just tally marks
I'm feeling pretty good. The lift is in. I need to fix one leaking hose that's making a mess. I'm going to fire up the service manual on the computer tonight and see what I can see. I have to get the new rally car back on the road and decent before I pull the van in. I need to limit overlapping projects for my own sanity.
Would I do it again? If you told me that the car would pop a head bolt 12k miles after buying it I would have gladly walked away. It's a great car, but that much time and money could be spent more constructively for sure.
mazdeuce said: If you told me that the car would pop a head bolt 12k miles after buying it I would have gladly walked away.
After reading this thread and the cheap Porsche daily driver thread. I think I will stay far far away from any German vehicle for the rest of my car buying life. To paraphrase a Brit car saying "The parts failing on this car were designed by the finest German Engineers"
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