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I guess PO didn't change the oil much

gajeepguy

NAXJA Forum User
Location
North GA
So valve cover leaking like all hell. Took VC off today to do gasket and clean the baffles and found all this (varnish?) and sludge on the head. Scraped it off, vac'ed it up and blew it out best I could. Now what is the best next course of action? Motor flush, seafoam, etc? Thanks guys never seen anything this bad.

IMG_20121109_114811.jpg
 
That is nasty looking! I would go mild, and use 5 quarts Rotella and 1 quart Marvel Mystery Oil. Drain after 1000 miles and refill with Rotella.
 
MMO, forgot about that one :D much cheaper than seafoam too. Thanks.

Yeah pretty gnarly looking. The inside of the VC and head had about 3/8" sludge build up on everything :brickwall: Glad I took the VC off and caught it anyway. Can you say clogged oil passage?
 
personally I would buy about 3-4 cheap filters. Fill it up with 3 quarts cheap 30W, two quarts of ATF, and a half quart lacquer thinner. Run it 100 miles and change the oil and filter. Repeat the process 3-4 times.
 
personally I would buy about 3-4 cheap filters. Fill it up with 3 quarts cheap 30W, two quarts of ATF, and a half quart lacquer thinner. Run it 100 miles and change the oil and filter. Repeat the process 3-4 times.

I've never heard this before. Care to explain?
 
be careful, last time i messed around with a motor that looked like that, my oil pickup on the pump clogged and it lost all oil pressure. doesnt take a ton of crap to fall down in the valley to clog it up.
what's the mileage? not terribly uncommon for very high mileage motors. my bronco II had like 340k on it when it looked like that.
 
I serviced a lexus with a v6 DOHC engine a few years back and I pushed the guy into new valve cover gaskets and when I popped the covers off it looked like volcanic glass.. I told the guy about it he didn't want to do anything about it and 1 week later he came back to me because all that crap started riding on the cam sprockets because some other shop had magic in a can or some crap like that.. It sounded like a baseball card in spokes while it was running :looney:

I think it ended with another tech and 100 headaches to get it cleaned.
 
My buddy's 99 with 200k on it looked like that when we replaced the VC gasket. We just scraped and vacuumed out as much as we could. Used brake cleaner on the valve cover once it was off. When we did the rear main, the oil pan had about 1/2" layer of sludge. A couple cans of brake cleaner and oven cleaner and a bunch of paper shop towels cleaned that up.
 
The motor has 155k on it :shrug: I guess cheapo oil and lack of changes caused the buildup. I'll flush it out keeping an eye on oil pressure (mechanical gauge in dash) and then plan to drop the pan (need to replace pan gasket anyway leaks like crazy and backflush the oil pickup to clean the screen out.

My dad recommended a similar procedure as above, except with 30w, ATF and Kerosene...I'll start with the MMO first and work my way up. I may have just opened a whole new can of worms lol :(
 
be careful, last time i messed around with a motor that looked like that, my oil pickup on the pump clogged and it lost all oil pressure. doesnt take a ton of crap to fall down in the valley to clog it up.
what's the mileage? not terribly uncommon for very high mileage motors. my bronco II had like 340k on it when it looked like that.

This!

DO NOT use Seafoam!! Seafoam is a great cleaner but it is also very aggressive. A great way to clog an oil pick-up screen.

Run 5 quarts Rotella 5w40 1 quart Marvel Mystery Oil for a few changes to start cleaning it slowly.
 
I've never heard this before. Care to explain?

Strictly an emergency process to clean things out...you would not get this advice from the owners manual.

I'd have to agree about the caution to an extent, although it sounds about right. You may have to clean it out and possibly drop the pan to avoid screwing up the pump and or oil galleries. All the crap has to go somewhere and since it all recirculates...it all goes everywhere. Through big galleries and through tiny orofices.

My dad used to drain the oil and actually pour in a GALLON of Kerosene...start it up and run it for about 2-3 minutes...then drain. that was on old Ramblers, Chevys and an old 62 Mercedes he had. Each one of those cars saw 200K plus. The Mercedes was sold at 300K running like a top.
 
Strictly an emergency process to clean things out...you would not get this advice from the owners manual.

I'd have to agree about the caution to an extent, although it sounds about right. You may have to clean it out and possibly drop the pan to avoid screwing up the pump and or oil galleries. All the crap has to go somewhere and since it all recirculates...it all goes everywhere. Through big galleries and through tiny orofices.

My dad used to drain the oil and actually pour in a GALLON of Kerosene...start it up and run it for about 2-3 minutes...then drain. that was on old Ramblers, Chevys and an old 62 Mercedes he had. Each one of those cars saw 200K plus. The Mercedes was sold at 300K running like a top.

My dad swears by the kerosene method
 
My 89 was 3 times worse when we changed the head gasket. All we did was mechanically remove it as we had the vacuum cleaner sucking it up. We did no work on the head, just replaced the gasket. That was4-5 years ago and about 60,000 miles since then. All I ever did was run 20W50 and some MMO the first 2 batches of oil.

I destroyed a great V-8 30 years ago running an aggressive oil change fluid, so I don't recommend them. You are just asking for a clogged something by loosening that stuff with strong solvent based cleaners.

Strongest thing I ever use is a pint of MMO with the oil change.
 
Man that oil was nasty! Only 1200 miles on it too. Did 5qt 15w40 rotella and 1qt MMO yesterday. Will continue this until sludge is drastically reduced then will do a flush and drop the pan..its leaking anyways.
 
The method I suggested is a tried and true old school shade tree mechanic solution. The key is to monitor how the clean up is going and not let it plug things up, so watch the oil pressure and change it frequently. I have cleaned over a dozen engines and never lost one, but YMMV.

Like the man said, get a vacuum cleaner and scrape as much crap off of the head as you can before starting.

If the vehicle is near and dear to you, I might just pull the head and take it over to your local auto machinist and have them tank the head and while they are at it, put in a new set of valve seals.

Don't forget to remove the baffles in the valve cover and clean everything well before putting it back together. Good Luck.
 
Man that oil was nasty! Only 1200 miles on it too. Did 5qt 15w40 rotella and 1qt MMO yesterday. Will continue this until sludge is drastically reduced then will do a flush and drop the pan..its leaking anyways.

If you plan to drop the pan anyway, I would do it as soon as possible to mechanically remove as much crap as you can.
 
The method I suggested is a tried and true old school shade tree mechanic solution. The key is to monitor how the clean up is going and not let it plug things up, so watch the oil pressure and change it frequently. I have cleaned over a dozen engines and never lost one, but YMMV.

Like the man said, get a vacuum cleaner and scrape as much crap off of the head as you can before starting.



If the vehicle is near and dear to you, I might just pull the head and take it over to your local auto machinist and have them tank the head and while they are at it, put in a new set of valve seals.

Don't forget to remove the baffles in the valve cover and clean everything well before putting it back together. Good Luck.

Yes I scraped and vacuumed the head out and have a mechanical oil pressure gauge to monitor it.

Also cleaned the baffles and hacked an inch off them

I may take the head off and get it serviced while I'm off for the Xmas holidays. I could do rings and mains while its all apart :dunno:
 
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