Hello, Changing the valve cover gaskets on an engine that runs, but has not has any real work done or been driven since the early 80's. I removed the cork gasket on the driver's side valve cover and the inside of the cover has old baked on sludge that I can clean up easily enough, but the area underneath the cover has it too. Is there any particular way to clean this correctly without removing the heads? Or are these past salvaging?
They are never past salvaging unless cracked or busted up in some way. Put the covers back on. Put some kerosene in the oil and with a new filter and clean oil. Fire it up and just let it idle. Dont mash the gas or you will spin the rods. Drain oil and filter. Reapeat above as nessesary. It will never be new,But will be cleaner. May need to remove pan and oil pump screen to clean all the sludge out after.
well if the heads were to come off I would say brake cleaner. But leaving them on I would say a scraper and vacuum?
What does spin the rods mean? I ask because the engine wants to idle but bogs down, so I have to keep a light pressure on the gas- not wide open but probably faster than idle.
Air works the best.Use air compressor and watch the grease fly.Change that There baked .Pull heads and soak in kero gas mix Let soak for a few days and brush clean .
Leave em alone. Do an oil change every 1000 miles for a while. It'll probably help to do the first couple of changes at 500 miles. Try to get some highway miles on it between changes. Might help to use some 5-30 WT or even 0-30 WT for the cleaning process. Better to have the sludge break loose a little at a time due to the detergent qualities of the fresh oil than to scrape it off and have big chunks floating around in the oil system.
@C9- OK, thanks. I was gonna use some steel wool & brake cleaner on the valve covers ONLY just to get them cleaned up. I was careful removing the gasket to keep out bits of it. Thanks for the advice!
Wow! that poor car went a while without an oil change. Like C9 said, leave it be. Also, use a non detergent oil so everything stays put and doesn't eventually plug up the pickup screen.
He means spin a rod bearing and not allow the oil to lubricate the connection of the rod and the crank. Putting any solvent into the motor worries me. It can was the lubrication off of critical parts. I'm sure it has been done successfully, but I wouldn't risk it. If it were me, I'd yank the heads. Rob
That crud ain't going anywhere unless you loosen it up. But if you can't stand it, carefully, dont force any downstairs, scrape off what you can and vacuum up the chunks. Put the covers back on. Change oil, use the cheapest, 5w20, run it until it's hot change it again, new filter. Run it a week, change oil and filter again using the oil you plan on using. Anything better would require a complete disassembly. Cleaning just the heads is an exercise because what you see there is also existe in the bottom and oil pan also.
I would have to agree with this, the whole engine is this dirty, the only way to clean it right is to disassemble it. Then you will find that it needs a lot more than just cleaning.
now that I agree with and pull the pan and screen too, it looks like to me from the photo it was run hot or had that oil Q.S. with the parfin in it..in it for a long time..in any case ...marvel mystery oil a.k.a. trans fluid will help in small dose's over a period of a long time..now if you are a used car salesman well ahhh I got nothing to say about it, hope this helps,
I don't think detergent oil (HD) will hurt a thing. The purpose of detergent oil is to keep particulates in suspension to be captured in the filter not to wash off any previously accumulated goop. The BEST WAY, what you asked, is to remove the head and carefully clean all that crap out of and off of the cylinder head and valve/rocker/springs and return passages. It isn't the EASIEST WAY but it is the BEST WAY. And it wouldn't hurt to replace the valve seals while you're at it, well, then it wouldn't hurt to do a valve job either, well, it wouldn't hurt to ...just scrape what you can see off, vacuum whatever and replace the valve cover gaskets and drive...
There are some excellent cleaners designed for cleaning your engine. You use the cleaner with new oil & filter and follow the instructions. When done, drain oil, drop the pan & clean it out along with the pickup screen. Butch
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