Best way to melt engine sludge?

[Chevyv8-348]

Got me a nice running 348 chevy for my 45 GMC. It runs great but I can see through the oil fill that there's alot of crusty old sludge built up in it. Gonna pull it this weekend and set it in the garage while I work on the frame and such. I plan on replacing all the seals and gaskets before I put it in but would like to let the engine soak filled with something to help break down the hard sticky sludge all through the inside of the motor until I get to that point. I've used gasoline and diesel before for washing out oil pans and valve covers but what would work best to make cleaning it out later easier?

 

[Sam_Fear]

If it still runs, go get a can of Motor Flush and use it. I've heard ATF, diesel, or kerosine do the same.

 

[Coffee Freak]

If it still runs, go get a can of Motor Flush and use it. I've heard ATF, diesel, or kerosine do the same.

The ATF trick was told to me by an old-timer. He said that the best way to do it was to drain the oil out, put on a cheapie oil filter, fill it completely with ATF, run the motor for an hour or so at idle and imediately drain it out and pull the oil pan. ATF has additives that break down the sludge deposits and by running the motor, it will move them around. You will want to pull the oil pan and clean everything ESPECIALLY the oil pickup and screen. When done, give the motor a complete oil change and fresh filter (good one this time).


He had also done the kerosene trick at points, but said that he didn't like it because he felt it didn't provide sufficient lubrication like the ATF did. He said it was the equivalent of running super thin motor oil instead of an actual cleaner.

 

[26Troadster]

there is no way i would ever run a motor for any amount of time with just atf for oil. i just don't believe the atf will lube the bearings. we used to use some stuff that came in a yellow can and the name was something like rosalen or something like that. i would study up on it alittle and see what i could find. the atf trick is you run a quart with the oil and fersh filter, but beware if you turn all the gunk loose at one time it could clog your oil pickup and starve your motor for oil.

 

[sneakysnake]

Be careful, any sludge that flakes off and is not desolved likes to stop up the oil pickup tube screen.Dont ask how I know that.I second the "not" using straight ATF in the motor.

 

[maverickmk]

ATF does have some cleaning agents in it. I would not run it for an hour though. Best thing to do is pull the valve cover and see how bad it really is. If it's like pudding then something like the ATF would move some of that out. But if it's crusty, baked on crap then my suggestion would be to pull all the pans and start carefully scraping that stuff off of there. Be careful not to get any of it in any area you can't reach to get it out. Put it on a motor stand and turn it so as you're scraping all the pieces fall to the floor, not inside the engine.
That's my $.02

 

[Hydrocarbon Rocket]

I had a great running engine one time until I cleaned all the sludge that was holding it together. I got so much blow by after, you could rev it up and it would blow the PCV out and hit the hood. Like someone else said study up a bit more and BE CAREFUL.

 

[Torch]

You don;t need to run straight atf to get the detergent effect
I usually run 1-3 quarts out of 5-6 total
Like he was getting at you want to maintain film strength
marvels mystery oil is good too.

I'd pull the valve covers and intake scrape and brush it clean flush it clean down into the pan with diesel or turpentine pull the pan or flush the pan clean let it dry out fill it with clean oil a couple quarts of atf and one quart of marvels

My semi when i bought it at 440k had stuck bearings in the turbo and coked up carbon deposites
i started running a few qts of atf with a qt of marvels in it every oil change.
At 970k miles replacing a cracked head the cylinder walls had no ridge and were mirror smooth and the turbo freed up and never went bad

 

[maverickmk]

My semi when i bought it at 440k had stuck bearings in the turbo and coked up carbon deposites
i started running a few qts of atf with a qt of marvels in it every oil change.
At 970k miles replacing a cracked head the cylinder walls had no ridge and were mirror smooth and the turbo freed up and never went bad

Now that's impressive. I like the Marvels idea as well.

 

[hadahemi]

there is no way i would ever run a motor for any amount of time with just atf for oil. i just don't believe the atf will lube the bearings. we used to use some stuff that came in a yellow can and the name was something like rosalen or something like that. i would study up on it alittle and see what i could find. the atf trick is you run a quart with the oil and fersh filter, but beware if you turn all the gunk loose at one time it could clog your oil pickup and starve your motor for oil.

Rislone I believe is what it was called, not sure if they still make it or not.

 

[R Pope]

They still make Rislone, and it will probably loosen up the crud in your engine, but think about it....Do you want all that schlock pumping through your bearings? If its that bad, I would pull the covers and pan and dig out as much as possible first.

 

[Chevyv8-348]

Thanks everybody. Although the motor runs I can't run it long as there's a couple rotten freeze plugs and I can't keep the coolant in it. I hope to have it out of the car today and fill it so while I'm out of town for the next couple weeks that what ever I fill it with will have time to make life easier in a month or so to scrub everything out later. Will ATF work on breaking the sludge down without the engine being run?

 

[Torch]

salient facts gratuitous butt jokes and a political jab

everything that runs through the oil gets picked up and caught by the oil filter....

until the oil filter begins to plug up then the bypass valve opens

I bought a 1983 bronco with a 302 once. it had no oil pressure and was filled with oil to the top of the valve covers lol really...
It was running and not knocking he had been driving it that way for a while.

The reason I got it so cheap was it was running really bad.
I don't know how it was running at all
When the oil pump jammed it sheared the pin on the timing gear. it was still bolted on tight but 90 degrees out of phase and he had retimed the distributor to match the out of time cam.

so I put on a new timing set, dropped the pan, replaced the oil pump, rolled in a set of new bearings and replaced the broken oil pump driveshaft

the bearings were showing copper but the crank was still smooth

I tore down the oil pump to see what caused it to jamb


A wafer thin flake of carbon that had flaked off the inside of the pickup tube had lodged flat between the oil pump rotor and the wall jamming it in place where the lobe of the rotor sweeps past the lobe of the stator.
Backing up the oil pump freed the flake.
This election...lets free the flake


One in a million shot doc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5ncsjMVzcc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbS3-Rn21SY

 

[Noah Zarq]

Sludge

From everything I've read, Marvel Mystery Oil is just standard stoddard solvent- the same stuff as dry cleaning fluid- with coloring and scent added. If you are not going to actually run the engine, you can drain the oil and fill it with stoddard solvent, or kerosene, or most any light oil. Even mineral spirits would work. Just make sure you clean everything up really well before you fire it up the first time.

I had an old slant six that sat for 7 years. Soaking for 2 days in MMO freed it right up...then I found out about dry cleaning solvent being much cheaper.

 

[Torch]

marvels is not solvent. its low viscosity oil like shock oil with additives and silicon lubricant. It's considered a micro lubricant like liquid wrench or wd40 for it's ability to get into tight gaps.
marvels lubes valves and rings good and the silicon in it doesn't burn off the internals as easily as the mineral oil
I like to use it on engines which have been sitting a long time that could have some mild corrosion. It's resurrected a few mills that had rusty cylinder walls and sticky rings and valves.
Once I bought a 73 firebird with a 350 in it that was on the verge of being stuck. when it fired off a cloud of rust blew out the back
It ran through a couple fuel filters then was fine until I marveled the tank... ended up with 3 or 4 more fuel filters plugged with a fine rust powder before it stabilized
It always had that smell of burning antifreeze and caramelized mineral oil but it was an ever dependable champ and got me 22 mpg with a 2bbl and 2:41 gears and a turbo 350
Right before I retired the 350 she started puking antifreeze when she was cold.
I filled her back up with water and 6 eggs which sealed and cooked hard into the blown head gasket.
Drove it 2 more months like that without a problem. after earning enough for another car i let her sit a couple weeks and the egg seal went soft and failed
I went the 400... 1976 400 with 6s heads 800 cfm quadrajet and intake from a 455, and a 1969 RAIV cam

"RAIV cam= 0.516-inch lift 308-degrees intake/320-degrees exhaust, the cam's duration at 0.050-inch valve lift is what really set it apart. This cam came with an at-0.050-inch duration of 231-degrees intake and 240-degrees exhaust, which is almost impractically large even by modern roller-cam standards"

I had a 1973 grand prix with a 400, that RAIV cam, 2:73 posi, monte carlo handling package and weenie 235 75 r15's bfgoodrich all seasons that would beat any stock ho mustang I raced. Beat a guy with a datsun turbo Z several times and really got him flummoxed.
Never had it at the track for times but it would top out 50 mph in first, 85 mph in second and had it up around 120-130 a few times. it could have gone faster but I didn't want to push my luck on non speed rated tires
If you were cruising at 65 and dropped the hammer it would downshift flash up to the bottom of the power-band at 2200 rpm raise the nose and keep you slammed up to around 5,500 -6,000 rpm
I rant the same engine combo in that 73 bird but the 2:42 rear dragged it down off the line the first 50-60 feet. The firebird nailed would shift into second at 56mph, drive at 90 mph but I never top ended it
I was driving trucks at that time and didn't want to lose my job for racing

I never had an engine cammed up like that before
When first got the car I couldn't figure out why I couldn't get it to run smooth with just a carb and ignition rebuild.
The vacuum advance in the dizzy was siezed from sitting so I swapped that out and it still wouldn't run worth a damn (so I thought) until the first time I hit 2200 rpm and all hell broke luce

hell broke luce
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Fju9o8BVJ8

I later put a 400 in. the 350 had a whistle on one cylinder from a bad headgasket crossfiring
Drove it like that a year
When I tore it down you could rock the piston tops about .020 the cylinders were so worn

I bought an 86 f600 in denver put a hitch on it and bought a tow dolly in fort morgan at american tow dolly and towed my pickup home.
I bought 1 qt marvels. put half in the oil half in the gas.
before I got back to Omaha The rain was beading off my pickup from the silicon in the exhaust fumes from the marvels burning off
I don't know what it would do to an oxygen sensor. might mess it up

I got that bird at a really tough time in my life and it got me through. It had headers, burnt out glass packs and pipes that kicked out at the rear of the doors
I miss that reassuring "blub blub blub blub blub blub blub fwoooo- blub blub blub blub blub blub blub fwooo"

 

[Torch]

I think the key to setting up a Pontiac mill is not going as deep in the gears as you'd go with a Chevy
Pontiac’s are long legged but the stock heads have their limits
You can run them out of wind pretty quick but you can also load them down pretty strong and they will pull it.
I'd compare the Pontiac 400 to the ford 390 if I had to say it was like " manah manah"

At the same rpm comparison:
BB chevy has a shorter rod builds piston speed earlier in the sweep and the chevies got a larger port to handle the demands.
The intake ports in the pontiac don't flow as much as a good set of hi perf chevy heads but the piston speed in the pontiac is slower off tdc but faster mid stroke than the chevy so the pontiac while not being able to flow as much as the chevy in an instant...
..By the engines geometry spreads that demand over more degrees of crankshaft duration and focus's more of the max piston speed mid stroke when the valves are fully off the seats and flowing.
The extreme overlap and duration of the pontiac cam is "tamed" by the slower piston speed at tdc and bdc from the longer rods.
The valves in a set of 6s heads are pretty big
What's really amazing is getting that great of power on a cam that big with 8.5 to 9 to 1 compression

The pontiac v8 has a rod-stroke ratio that gives it's smaller ports a breathing advantage like putting tall deck truck rods in a 454 car block with a 396 crank and 454 pistons to build a long rod 427.

look at these valves and fully machined chambers

 

[Rat'l Trap]

look on the net for AutoRx. Specially made to slowly dissolve crud and liquefy it so it wont plug the screen. Takes a long time because they want you to drive like 3000 miles with it in the oil, then change the oil and drive another 3000 to flush out the bad stuff. I used it on my daily driver that had a hydraulic lifter tick, and it cleaned it in 100 miles. Now I have 178K on the car and it still runs great. I think it loosened a stuck ring too. Good stuff if you want to invest the time. The other methods are kinda risky, but quicker.

 

[Sunnybeach]

Some people on another list were raving about Sea Foam. It sounds like Marvel Mystery Oil but I have never used it.

http://www.seafoamsales.com/motor-treatment.html

Copy -n- Paste from their site.
Safely helps quiet noisy lifters, helps remove fuel deposits and oil residue, helps smooth rough idle. For Carburetors or Fuel Injected Gasoline Engines - Autos – Trucks – Tractors – Motorcycles – Marine – Small Engines – Industrial Engines Great for Diesel Engines Too!

SEA FOAM Motor Treatment is a petroleum based product that helps clean internal fuel and oil system components. SEA FOAM is an EPA-registered product, and will not harm engine components, seals, gaskets, catalytic converters or oxygen sensors.

 

[Neverdone]

The farm I worked for always used to use diesel in all the trucks and tractors. We would drain them, leave the old filter on, fill up to full marks with diesel, start and let them run for 15-20 minutes, then drain allowing to drip for 10-20 minutes then finish the job with fresh oil and filter. I never thought that would be good for a motor, but the whole time I worked there we never had to tear one down except for a head gasket on one truck. And when we did open that one up it was sparkling clean!! And they used to run there stuff until it was thoroughly used up! On a daily basis they still ran a truck from 73, two tractors out of the 40s, their nicest daily driver truck was a 91, I worked there from 03-06, and believe me their stuff was USED!!

 

[BigIrish]

May be a dumb question but - why not just leave it alone? If it has good oil pressure and oil isn't pooling up in the heads, what does the sludge hurt?

Seems like disturbing all that old sludge is like poking at a beehive.