For the first time in a couple of months, I have started work on my prject car that I rescued from the side of the road. It is an '83 244 DL with 202K and an automatic transmission. I got the car for free, the only real money that had to change hands was to have it towed off of the freeway and money to rent a trailer to go after it (it was 80 miles from where I live). The car would start, but ran with a knock and would die if you let off of the accelerator. I let it set until this weekend, when I started it up and drove it around in my neighborhood a little. I loosened the coolant resorvoir cover and a lot of pressure came out of it followed by a definite puff of pressure consistent with a piston building compression and then leaking compression into the water jacket with each stroke. I drained the radiator (it only had about a gallon of water in the entire cooling system), removed the valve cover, loosened the timing belt and took it off of the camshaft pulley, and took the nuts loose for the intake and exhaust manifolds. My manual is in storage (wife put all of my books in storage when we put our house on the market to sell), I ran out of time, and I could not find my 1/2" drive extension to take the head bolts out. Are there any other things I need to do before removing the head bolts. This is my first head gasket experience with an overhead cam engine. Also, I would like any suggestions on checking head condition. I don't mind getting the head resurfaced, but what are the chances that the head is actually cracked. I believe the bottom end of the engine is OK as there is no water in the oil that could have etched the bearings. I had an engine do this once and found that the knocking was due to the piston coming up on a slug of water. The problem seems to lie in the #1 and #2 cylinders, as I removed the spark plug wires one at a time and found that removing these two wires did not affect the running of the car, yet pulling #3 or #4 would kill the engine (that is pulling one wire at a time, then putting it back on before pulling the next wire). Any help or suggestions appreciated.

Lance
'83 244 DL 202K
'86 245 DL (daily driver) ? Miles
'98 Mercedes ML320
soon to have '83 Mercedes 240D (no electronics except radio - no timing belts - no overdrive relays - no bad wiring harness as everthing on engine is mechanical - THIS COULD BE MY DREAM CAR <> 117K 4sp manual