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unbelievable amount of sludge in oil pan

john cola

john cola

New member
On Friday I discovered coolant in my oil. the milkshake syndrome. I bought a lower intake gasket kit and will change them monday, but today i drained the oil...and there was an unbelievable amount of the thick sludge in there. completely filled my oil drain pan to the top...i slid a coffee can in there, it filled to the top, slid another oil drain pan under and about 1/3rd filled that. It's hard to believe my poor 3800 can survive this. has this happened to anyone else? how did it turn out?
 


Poor maintenance has consequences. Not saying you did it. You could drop the pan and clean it. Run some BG oil flushes through with oil changes every 1000 miles for a few thousand miles. If there is sludge in the pan, its probably everywhere else too.

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Well if your LIM gasket blew out, the mass amounts of coolant mixed with the oil is going to make the milkshake/sludge.

If thats the case then almost everything is going to have coolant on it/in it be it the crank and main bearings, cam bearings etc etc.

I would change the gaskets and buy lots of cheap oil to pour down the valley and to dump in the crankcase. Maybe rotate the motor by hand for a while to help get it around and clean it out before you start the car up.
 
I wonder if you could get away with disabling fuel and spark and spin the motor w/ the starter. Would it still move enough oil to flush out any coolant left in the bearings? I hope we're not seeing the beginnings of another rod knockin 3800 :th_nervous:
 
Yeah he could do that. Pull your fuel pump fuse throw some peak or whatever is cheap your way and crank it a hole bunch of times, like what you do when you rebuild your motor.
 


Do the LIM gaskets. Likely one blew out into the lifter valley.

To spin the motor w/o fuel and spark, simply leave the ICM connector unhooked. If that were mine, I'd do the gaskets, drop in a fresh cheap oil change. crank it a bit and look at the dipstick. If not foamy or crazy, start the car and let it run a minute. DRain and do another oil change. Repeat until your oil is clean and decent again.
 
I recently bought a 60k mile 3800 Series II from 1996 Regal. Took the oil pan off to clean it and there was 1/4" of sludge on the bottom. What a mess. The crank and cylinder walls were stained dark color. So, even though it was old persons car, they probably changed oil once a year because mileage took forever to reach. I wonder if it will do well. I'm going to look into the BG.

When the guy pulled it for me he left engine outside. Took me little over a two weeks to get it picked up with my truck.Noticed it no longer had the oil fill cap on it. wonder how much dust dirt got in the engine. THoughts how to protect the engine before running it? or?
 
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