I have an 86 420SEL with what amounts to a blown engine.

A piece of the plastictiming chain guide broke and got caught in the chain putting a hole in the driver side valve cover and presumably knocking the engine out of timing enough to cause those pistons to hit the valves - the drivers side cylinders do not have compression at all.

Anyway, my question to you is what to do now. I was thinking about putting in a used 420 or even 560 engine (depending on how difficult the swap would be), rebuilding my engine would cost about $7000 so that is out of the question.

Has anyone had this happen, and what can I do?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

Best bet get another engine either the 420 or a 560 like u said though i am not a mechanic many of the parts on a 420 motor and a 560 motor are then same so i would assume that either would be a good choice i am assuming the rest of the car is in perfect condition cause it may be cheaper just to get another car and use that one for parts your choice.

 

The rest of the car is in pretty good shape. I was hoping to get a used engine and install it or have it installed for 1000-$1500, this may be wishful thinking i dont know.

Something so that at least i could get 10-20k more out of the car.

One big hurdle to simply buying another car is that in MD a car has to be inspected before it can be registered and this is usually expensive.

Back to work,
Andrew