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This is a lot of sludge...

7K views 21 replies 15 participants last post by  K and K 
#1 ·
Pulled the valley plate on a 57 Caddy 365, I knew I'd find sludge but not this much...
 

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#4 ·
K and K,

I have seen this many times in the OLD cars.
They run colder than cars now is the first thing. Not changing the oil enough. We were taught to change our oil every 2 to 3 thousand miles but some people did not put on that many miles so they did not change the oil. Also
oils BACK then was non-detergent. So sludge would build up faster.
You are in for some DIRTY work here.

Good Luck in the clean-up

Scholman
Retired
 
#5 ·
artsvettes said:
That was typical back in the day. Pretty much went away when closed crankcase ventilation came into play. Along with better oils
Closed crankcase ventilation, such as pcv valves where cc pressure isn't routed straight to atmosphere? How would this affect sludge build up? I was under the impression this was always due to running bad and old oil? What really affects it?
 
#6 ·
scholman said:
K and K,

I have seen this many times in the OLD cars.
They run colder than cars now is the first thing. Not changing the oil enough. We were taught to change our oil every 2 to 3 thousand miles but some people did not put on that many miles so they did not change the oil. Also
oils BACK then was non-detergent. So sludge would build up faster.
You are in for some DIRTY work here.

Good Luck in the clean-up

Scholman
Retired
When I started the motor before I picked up the car I heard squeeks in the valvetrain under the driver side v/c. Found lots of sludge on top of the heads with no oil getting up two of the push rods to two of the rockers, so I suspected it'd be nasty under the valley plate. Cleaned the heads good with seafoam and reamed out the p/r's with safety wire.
Oil flowed up all rods good then.
After I put the covers back on with new gaskets I found it seeping at the rear of the v/c's. Pulled the covers again to find that ALL oil getting pumped up to the rockers was staying up there because the oil drain back ports were plugged! Reamed that all out as well. Drains back now.
 
#7 ·
A lot of the old oils had parrifin in them. basically it is wax. It would build up like crazy if not changed regularly. It was not unusual to pull apart old engines and see stuff exactly like that. I remember pulling the valve covers off a late 60's mopar and they were literally full except where the rockers were moving in the sludge.
 
#9 ·
T-bucket23 said:
A lot of the old oils had parrifin in them. basically it is wax. It would build up like crazy if not changed regularly. It was not unusual to pull apart old engines and see stuff exactly like that. I remember pulling the valve covers off a late 60's mopar and they were literally full except where the rockers were moving in the sludge.
Chet, I bought an old 60 Chevy Van w/I6 years ago. It was the same, V-covers filled to the top except where the rockers moved. My Dad said the same thing, (Good ole paraffin oil). I was about 16 at the time. I started to clean the crud out & He stopped me & said unless you're gonna drop the pan you better leave it alone. :D It had Quaker State oil cans everywhere inside.
Todd
 
#11 ·
SSedan64 said:
Chet, I bought an old 60 Chevy Van w/I6 years ago. It was the same, V-covers filled to the top except where the rockers moved. My Dad said the same thing, (Good ole paraffin oil). I was about 16 at the time. I started to clean the crud out & He stopped me & said unless you're gonna drop the pan you better leave it alone. :D It had Quaker State oil cans everywhere inside.
Todd
A lot of people lost engines when the high detergent oils first came out. It would start to loosen up all that crap, plug the oil pickup and boom. I was in trade school in the early 70's and we did a lot of Ford engines with completely plugged screens. Usually not to long after an oil change with high detergent oil.
 
#13 ·
did that motor have a filter on it or was that a pre-filter engine?

that motor might benifit from 2 qts oil and 3 qts of kerosene run through it
warm it up, drive it (no hills) and drain it while it's hot

i've done this on older motors bought from the jy
 
#15 ·
artsvettes said:
That was typical back in the day. Pretty much went away when closed crankcase ventilation came into play. Along with better oils
several years back i pulled the valve covers off of a 302 79 t bird and you could see the ford emblem imprinted in the sludge. You could barely see the rocker arms. I put the covers on and administered last rights. :smash:
 
#16 ·
K and K said:
Pulled the valley plate on a 57 Caddy 365, I knew I'd find sludge but not this much...
Ahh, yep! Really common engines tended to run too cold back then like 140-160 degree thermostats were the thing. Oils were not as refined as they are today having a lot of stuff that mixed with crankcase water vapor, and the lead and bromine in the fuels to make this stuff, then not changed often enough. Even the detergent oils of the 1950's, 60's and 70s weren't good enough to prevent sludge formation. Many people wouldn't run detergent oils, as has been said the introduction of detergent oils to already sludged up engines loosened enough of that stuff to were it circulated either plugging the the intake to the pump or if missed by the filter some small but important feed hole, rockers probably got the worst of it nearly everybody and especially the Ford Y block had top end oiling problems. So detergents got a bad rap from doing what they were intended to do to sludged old engines. Starting with a new engine and detergent oil wasn't a problem but if the engine had many miles and only non-detergent oil in one was better off to stay with the non-detergent oils. With road draft tubes for ventilation, engines that saw a lot of in city driving had bigger problems than highway driven vehicles since they didn't get warm enough to drive the water vapor out nor driven fast enough to suck the vapors into the passing air stream so they filled up on blow-by venting only excess pressure from the tubes rather than drawing clean air in one end and venting the gunk from the other.

Yours is really a case where the engine needs to be cleaned by removal from the car and partially disassembled to clean it. Loosening this stuff in place risks getting chunks into circulation with the oil. If the engine holds good compression I wouldn't pull the crank, rods or pistons out. But I would pressure wash and well flush the crankcase with a solvent. Usually the upper parts of the crankcase are pretty clean where there is a lot of oil wash from operation. The ugly places are what you already see in the rocker boxes and valley. The other really icky places will be the timing case and the pan.

Once clean reseal it and put it together and drop it in the engine room.

Everybody, well us older guys at least, have stories about this stuff gone wild. My personal favorite was a guy that came in the shop complaining that after he drove for 15-20 minutes his Chevy V8 lost all oil pressure and when he allowed the engine about an hour of rest, when restarted the oil pressure was back, then the cycle repeated. He went on to say that when the oil was checked at pressure loss the pan would be empty and after that hour it would be full again. Pulling the rocker covers, I should say once I fought them off, and pulled the intake; one could see that the sludge had nearly closed the oil returns. The rocker covers and valley filled with oil finally lowering the level in the crankcase to where the pump had nothing to pump. When shut down for an hour the oil would finally drain back and everything would appear normal in the pan. I treated this as I describe above using Safety-Kleen which is less of a fire hazard than most other solvents and we had plenty of it at the shop. The heads, rocker covers, inside of the intake, the timing case and pan were cleaned by first scraping and scooping, then solvent washed. Wiped it out and dried it with lint free towels, replaced the timing set, seals and gaskets, lubed the cylinder walls and bottom end with a spray of Marvel Mystery oil (just love the fresh mint smell) put in the car, filled with oil and fresh filter and fired it up.

The owner had never changed oil only topped it up when needed which is how he got into this problem on the extreme edge of the sludge issue.

Bogie
 
#17 ·
Good and bad when I pulled the pan. Good it that there doesn't appear to be anything close to rubberized sludge that was in the top end. Bad is that the pump pickup feels real loose in the pump. On these engine a cotter pin holds the pickup to the pump body, but it appears to be metal tube sliding into a metal housing. Not sure how much a rebuild kit will help the pump.
This could let in air any time oil level is below where the pickup tube slides into the pump, I also found a pinhole on the pickup on the reverse side of the pickup screen. This cold let any air in as well.
There is sludge built up behind the screen around the inlet tube.
 

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#18 ·
This tube isnt a tight press fit like you might find on a sbc where you only tack it for insurance, it rotates really easy in there and is only secured by a cotter pin, so if I only tack it, I think there is a chance for air to get through still. What do you think?
Here is the oil pump pickup with the odd hole on the reverse side of the screen. It looks like a an old spot weld for some reason. You can see it pukes oil when you squeeze the canister that is the pickup housing. You can see behind the pickup screen, the inlet tube, but also that it is like a canister behind the screen. I just want to make sure that this hole doesent serve a purpose before I weld it up. Also any that read my post earlier about the pickup sitting loose in the pump housing can see the only sealing element is the flat rubber gasket that has since turned to brittle rock.
If anyone would give any input on this pickup I'd be grateful.
 

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#20 ·
de sludge time.

chevy I 6 and ford 292's would plug up the oil feed passage to the rocker arms They would really get noisey as the metal wore out. A lot of Fords had the outside oil line kit to the rockers, On chevies you pulled the rocker arm-stands an ran a wire thru the hole then solvent and then blew with the air hose, usually every couple of months. when I was in school and broke. I would buy a gasket kit, disassemble everything, clean it up, scuff the cylinder walls with 400 paper, clean the valves and lap them in. Then an engine was good for a couple of years of everyday driving. For an oil change sometimes we would pull the spark plugs and mix some kerosene and a quart of fresh oil , crank for a couple minutes to flush an engine before refilling with oil.











chevy I
 
#21 ·
sludg

had a 55 ford yblock,worked in a logging camp,i used series 1 oil(for diesel engines) changed it every 3000 miles,at 90000 pulled valve covers for valve adjust,the engine was spotless.so my tho-ts are and still is good detergent oil and regular changes.And do not use current oil for diesels in engines with flat tappet cams. this engine had the road draft tube,so i do not agree that pcv valve is the cure for sludge. the lead in fuels was a contributor as well as lack of servic with quality oil and filter. cliff
 
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