I began my rebuild when I did a compression test and noticed I had poor compression in cylinders 2-6 (about 142 psi, the bottom of the service limit). Cylinder 1 had 160 psi. A leakdown test showed leakage into each adjacent cylinder. Of course my engine also had the oil consumption problem (1 quart every 1000 miles) that every M54 engine has, which is caused by the oil rings which wear down prematurely (the M52TU used different oil rings which did not have this problem). There was also coolant loss, which I didn't measure precisely. It's pretty clear that was caused by the cracks in the cylinder head, particularly the crack at the surface of #2. The piston in that cylinder was somewhat cleaner than all the rest.
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My cylinder head turned out to have cracks in it. If I had examined it more closely I would have noticed. Here is what to look for.
I ended up buying another used head from a junkyard for $120 and it has been rebuilt by the machine shop. They were nice enough not to charge me for the cleaning on this one.
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