Ray, I tried to just place the images in the reply but only come up as blue squares. Here's all 3 links: http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=21582&pictureid=274245 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=21582&pictureid=274244 http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/album.php?albumid=21582&pictureid=274243 You think it's clean enough?
for now the rockers are ok but lets see the other side. whats left can be disolved with reslone and driven at the same time. It will never be perfectly clean but will be a lot cleaner and function properly.
I had the drain back holes plug up on one of my 390's. That sucker pumped oil out the tailpipe. Like a quart every 100 miles or so. Once the holes were clear the motor ran great, no more leaky gaskets or oil burning.
I cleaned my heads and unclogged the drain holes in the last couple of days. The holes (front and back) were barely able to be found as you can see in the pictures. They are now clean and nothing should be in the way of the oil draining. From what I can tell, the valve seals look ok, but I haven't removed everything to see. This weekend, (or next) I plan to put it all back together with new valve cover gaskets and gold paint on the valve covers....that's what the car came winth along with air cleaner. Let me know your thoughts.
Already told you my thoughts, and you found exactly what I told you that you probably would. Again, the back plugs will be the oil-blackened ones, simply because the engine tilts to the back in the car . The oil was building up until it ran though the gaps in the intake, which put the back guides underwater. You don't need to take anything else apart on that side, do the other side and start with the oil changes. Shouldn't be any rich mixture or heat range problems, it's just oil-fouled- clean the plugs, switch the cleaner front plugs to the back and vice-versa, they'll clean up once they're not bombed with oil. Wait until it's cleaned up to put in new plugs, unless you like buying lots of plugs- it should burn itself clean soon enough. I still recommend Marvel or Seafoam to slowly clean the engine, not an engine flush kind of thing like Rislone, if stuff gets dislodged too fast, all that crap is running through your bearings- not good. You've seen how much crap in there, do you really want it to all come loose at once? That's a real fast way to roach your bearings, because the new filter will quickly fill up with crud, then the bypass will open and send unfiltered cruddy oil through the engine. Again, change the oil as soon as it shows black color, as many times as it takes- and the LAST thing you want to put in your sludged-up engine is STP that's the consistency of cold honey- that crap will just lay in the bottom of the pan like a big clot, just the opposite of what you need right now. Glad it was the simple thing- like I said, 390's are tough as a nickle steak, even when abused by poor maintenance like yours was- you're going to be amazed how good it runs when you get done- and the skeeter repellent cloud should clear up in a few days- there's probably a good supply of oil in your mufflers that needs to burn out- don't get those muffs too hot for a while, no long drives down the freeway
Sorry to bump this back to the top, but how did you clean all the sludge out of the heads? My Edsel is smoking the exact same way and I want to check those oil drain holes. Did you use a cleaning agent or just scrape scrape scrape?
Screwdrivers work pretty good, pull the crud out towards you, and out, then some rags. A small, longstem driver works when you actually get down in the drainback holes, try to pull everything outward that you can, a couple quick oil/filter changes will do the rest
So, if you pull the covers off and the drainback holes are plugged, filling up the covers with oil, you wouldn't clean them out and try it, you'd just start changing seals? Really?
Thanks Gene. I got new valve cover gaskets on lunch and am getting to work as soon as I get home. The drain holes seem to make sense to me, because my right bank not only smokes, but breathes about a quart out a week, haha. Seems like its just flowing right back into the intake. Im tired of cleaning my whitewalls daily too, lol.
Once you get out all the crud you can, you'll be able to see the bottleneck where the oil drains around the headbolt- as long as the oil is reasonably clean, it drains very well- but if it's been neglected and crudded up, it clogs the drain. Put a bit of fresh oil in the drainback hole and use something like a piece of tie wire to to work in there and flush it out until you can see that it drains- then start with the oil changes to get the rest out. Switch the front two plugs to the rear and vice versa, after cleaning the back ones with some carb cleaner, you should see clean ones in front, black ones in back
Good deal. Thanks for the help. Im due for an oil change anyway and I have a bottle of Marvel waiting for its turn.
Ya ready for a story.I bought a rebuilt 352 engine from Ford years ago.After a while it started smoking.l had new valves,so it couldn,t be that.So i started to find out what was the problem,I pulls the head and comes to find the wrist pin had worked it way out,they are held in with a clip.If all else fails take a look and see.Don,t ya just hate bad news.
Jeez, youse guyz go straight to the doom 'n gloom- this is a common problem, and not just with FE's, on engines that didn't get timely oil changes. I've bought several otherwise nice cars for cheap by recognizing the signs, and doing the very cheap fix- and once got some very nice "oral appreciation" for cleaning out the drains on a nice little gals' '79 Rally Sport Camaro that looked like it had NEVER had the oil changed since she bought it new, and was killin' 'skeeters with a vengeance- even had help cleaning up in the shower after gettin' all dirty
Working at a used car dealership in the 1970s, I saw a lot of this. The first thing we did was drain the oil. If it was really dirty or the lifters were rattling, we put trans fluid in it instead of oil, ran it for a couple of hours, drained and put engine oil in. It cleans them up pretty well.
I just wanted to give an update on my car smoking problem....it's gone!! I took of the valve covers and clean all sludge from them with a screw driver with no cleaning agents. You can see the before and after shots on my page. Once I freed the drain holes, I put on fresh gaskets and placed on the valve covers. I added a quart Rislone to the crank case and drove the car for 100 miles. I changed the oil and filter because the oil was BLACK! The car is running really clean now BUT I have a lot of oil leakage! I think that Rislone clean all the sludge out that was holding my oil in. Now I 'm going to have to find a way to stop the leaking or get a pressure washer for my driveway.
I think I warned you about using the quick-flush schidt, it cuts too much stuff loose too quick- your filter was probably clogged by 50 miles, the bypass opens, and all that crud is running through the whole engine, the bearings, lifters, seals, etc. A few quick oil changes with good detergent oil was what I recommended, changing it as soon as it showed a lot of color, BEFORE the filter clogged- no mileage number, no quick-flush, look at the dipstick for color. If you had run it much longer, your oil pressure light would probably be flickering. Leave that quick-flush schidt to the used car dealerships, it's like running Comet thru your bearings & stuff- hate to say it, but you probably just took 25K off the life of your engine with that snake oil Aren't you glad you didn't start tearing the whole thing apart, changing valve seals, etc... always try the simple stuff first Go around and snug up all the bolts on the pan and such, wash it off, and see if you have any other leaks- the pan especially tends to get a little loose after a few years
You're right you did say that. Although, the engine sounds better and not smoking. THe only thing that I don't like is how much oil is leaking. I think that I would've received the same results using MMO around the third time or so right? I wish that I had the juevos and the tools to pull the engine and replace gaskets and what not but I don't. I'm really a newbie at this stuff and that's why I joined this site/forum. The reason I didn't use MMO in the first place is because I spoke to people and took a tally of people who said use MMO and ones that said to use Rislone. Obviously Rislone won. Absolutely out of no disrespect man. I will get underneath there and tighten up some things and wash it off and see what happens. Thanks!
Well, I looked under my valve covers last night, clean as a whistle. Not a trace of sludge anywhere. Drain holes were as clean as new. I guess Ill change the valve seals?
The difference is that you could have cleaned it in a controlled manner, without the filter potentially clogging and bypassing, and running all that nasty crap through your bearings, lifters, seals and such. By cleaning it slowly, you can watch the color and consistency of the oil, and as soon as it gets some color, change it- while your engine still running on relatively clean oil, instead of liquid grit. That harsh quick-flush crap is best left to the used car lots, where a quick cleanup seems to take precedence over caring if it runs another 50K. I've seen that stuff poured into an engine, and could actually hear the engine slow down a bit after a few seconds Another area that can make one suck oil into the cylinders is in through the bottom of the intake ports, sometimes re-torquing the intake clears up a skeeter-killer Also had a funny one, I had built the engine for my buddy's '70 Boss 302 in '79, and it ran great, strong & clean. So he found a set of the Ford aluminum valve covers for it, and put them one, and called in a panic, said it was blowing up, smoking like a stove. So I get over there, ask him about funny noises, no, no noises and still running fine, just fogging blue smoke. And then I see the valve cover baffles sitting on the bench... I asked him if those were the ones out of those covers, yep, he didn't know what they were for, so he left them out. I pulled the PCV valve out, had him start it, and one of the rockers was squirting oil dead-center out of the hole, and right where the PCV valve was- and it quit smoking in about 30 seconds. Like I said, check all the easy stuff first, before the doom & gloomers talk you into a complete rebuild
remeber, your rocker shafts are full with gunk too, I just put my elli edsel`s rocker shafts to pieces, both totally full of gunk & old grease !!!
Maybe thats whats going on with my 390. Its old never been rebuilt to my knowledge. Was running as good as can be, then starting smoking like oil was making way in to exhaust manifold. Valve covers good but noticed oil residue from exhuast making the down turn to exhuast. like it was saturated.
Hey LazyBird, I'm will to be that your drain back hole in your heads are clogged. I got some thin gauged wire and a long screw driver and cleaned mine up that way. Don't let all the gunk get into your engine though! Then I got a nice engine cleaning agent Marvel Mystery oil and ran the engine and drove the car normally. The result is that the smoke went away completely! Good luck!
Will do..Waiting on NAPA for some valve cover gaskets. Also I pulled of the PCV and Tube and cleaned it all out as well. Will see tomorrow hopefully. Fingers Crossed..
Bought new 64 390 Galaxy in 64, started smoking at about 100k miles. Valve seals were hard enough to break when dropped on floor. Pulled and checked all engine parts. Everything went back standard. Absolutly no sludge in this engine. Lifter valley and pan were very clean. Only Havoline oil had ever been used. Convinced problem was valve seals.
Run Quaker state oil it will put back a thick coat of sludge on the inside and stop all of those pesky oil leaks. OldWolf
I have a FE 390 I pick up last year and am not sure how long it has been setting and I am not sure if The valve seals are the problem or not, I pulled the valve covers and wow they are clean inside so I don't think its a drain problem but I think the motor has been rebuilt at one time from the looks of the intake gaskets, one of the things I notice is if it idling it seems to load up but hammer down it stop smoking, its been my experience that under acceleration most will smoke if the rings are bad, but not in this case, it seem to load up at an idle, I check the plugs and they a running black but not wet.so I'm thinking it may be valve guide seals. what do you all think ? MMO or not with new seals ? Bud
The Jalopy Journal
