WTF?

So my Mercedes blew a head gasket. I overheated it pretty badly due to an unfortunate set of circumstances so it wasn't too surprising. What is surprising is somehow one of the cylinder sleeves is too low. No one I've talked to has seen such a thing before, and the options for dealing with it aren't particularly appealing. The two I'm considering are a totally new engine and selling the good parts of this one or having a steel spacer made to fill the gap. It's a tricky fix due to the high pressures inside the cylinder, but it seems likely that it was working up until the overheat with the cylinder low like this anyway.

Stupid cars. . .