I have a 96 SL2 with 268K on it. The engine was rebuilt at 198K after it blew a head gasket; so there is 70K on the rebuilt motor. The trans has never been rebuilt. I have owned the car since 2000 when it had 50K on it. Recently it was having an issue so I did some troubleshooting. It turns out that there is zero compression on cylinder 3 and zero compression on cylinder 4. My guess would be a bad head gasket but I haven't dug into it further yet. The plugs from cylinder 3 and 4 are oil fouled. I don't notice any oil in the coolant. I don't notice any coolant in the oil. Cylinder 1 has about 190 and cylinder two has about 205. I would like to keep the car running but I don't want to spend a lot of money on it. My thoughts are either I put a new head gasket in the existing engine or I get a used engine (and possibly used trans just in case). Either way I would do the work myself. I would like people to comment with their thoughts on these options (or possibly another option).
