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Lifter valley looks nasty... flush it?

The Chad

The Chad

New member
Seeing the gunk in my lifter valley, I really want to clean the engine out (just did the LIM gaskets). What about flushing it? If so, what particular flush is best? I'd like to hear everyone's take on this. I've included pics so that you can see how it looks. Everything is reassembled now.

I use synth oil. Any ideas on oils that clean better than others, or a particular flush to use, I'd like to hear them. '01 GTP w/122k. (Thanks to Mike '40th GP' for his info on the LIM job)

LIMgasket42.jpg


LIMgasket44.jpg


LIMgasket46.jpg
 


A series of really frequent oil changes does a pretty decent job most of the time but that **** looks serious... Really shoulda done something when it was apart honestly.
 


I used to use Mobil 1 every 3k miles and when I did my LIM job it was clean in there. I'm switching back to Amsoil after I do my rockers. Amsoil cleaned the crap out of my motor very well when I had my impala. When I tore it down to do the cam swap I just spritzed some brake clean in there to get rid of the excess oil and it looked like a brand new block. No sludge
 
I know when I pulled the bracket with the elbows on it the elbows let out a gush of coolant. Its probably from that.
 


SuperSport said:
I know when I pulled the bracket with the elbows on it the elbows let out a gush of coolant. Its probably from that.
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It probably was from the elbows. What a pain to pull out, they ended up breaking inside where the o rings go around them.

The oil was Quaker State Synth. I changed it right around every 3k since I owned it, the longest it may have went was 4k max! Nasty. Gonna use Mobil 1 from now on.

And about Seafoam, would that be too harsh on my engine since it's got 122k on it?
 
matt5112 said:
you're supposed to drain the coolant before removing anything.
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You're right. I did drain it first, but there was still a little bit left in there.

And what a freakin' pain it was to get the lower radiator hose off! That tension clamp was ridiculously positioned, hard to grab on to. I replaced it with a screw type hose clamp.
 
Remove coil bracket?

It can be off in 5 minutes.

At least you wont have to worry about that again.

Just watch the clamp itself, those style like to grind and tear themselves apart.

Also dont apply equal pressure all around the object its clamping.
 


Too bad you didn’t have more time to clean that before buttoning it up. Anyway, there are tons of engine flush products out there. Do any of them really work? Hard to say. If that were my engine I’d put in some SeaFoam or MMO (Marvel Mystery Oil) in with your current engine oil. Have used both of these before, they really do seem to “work”. And at the very least won’t hurt your car. Don’t overdue the amount follow their recommendations, you want to maintain the oil viscosity. Then run it for like a week, and change the oil with good high detergent oil like Pennzoil Platinum/Ultra (or whatever AMSOIL, Castrol Edge). I recommend this because in your situation a big release of sludge could kill your engine, especially if the oil pickup screen happens to get clogged. Hence I recommend the slow and gentle approach, kind of like a third date.:th_winking:
In the future you may want to consider shorter oil change intervals as well, it will help a lot with sludge.:th_thumbsup-wink:

 
It's tough to believe that you've been changing it every 3-4K, unless you have only had the car a couple of oil changes.

That's something I wouldn't want to clean all at once. Think about how stuff drains, clogs.. gets into the pickup of the oil system. No thanks. I'd prefer to do oil changes every 2K and know that it's super clean and fresh to clean that out slowly the way it accumulated.
 
BillBoost37 said:
It's tough to believe that you've been changing it every 3-4K, unless you have only had the car a couple of oil changes.
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I know, but the car has been running cool since summer, too cool, which hadn't been letting the oil get hot enough. I read that this causes sludge and muck (because the vapor doesn't get out of the oil or something). The oil always drained decently, dirty but not nasty. The lifter valley surprised the heck out of me.

So to anyone who has a car running too cool for a while, beware.
 
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