My 91 Explorer was leaking coolant so I pulled the engine apart to find a bad intake gasket and this horrible sludge . Truck only has 90K miles, the previous owner must have never changed the oil.








Mostly cleaned up and ready to bolt back together

 

wow the after looks soooo much better, crazy how people go so long without oil changes

 

Not necessarily a result of oil change frequency. Sludge has been an issue with several manufacturers, I know Toyota had or maybe still has a big issue with sludge in the Sienna and I think Camry.

 

True, but knowing what little overall maintenance was done on this vehicle im willing to bet it was due to lack of service.

 

Dang, that's nasty.

 

Back in high school, a friend of mine bought a used Mustang (it was probably 4 or 5 years old at the time). A week later, it died...turned out the previous owner had never changed the oil and the engine seized up.

 

mmm, pennzoil

 

That's pretty bad. I pulled 2 94's & they were not anywhere near that bad.
It's a 91. You sure the mileage is correct?
You should replace all the gaskets & clean the sensors & do a valve adjustment since you have it all apart.
Replacing your fuel injectors, changing the TS & coolant temp sensor may be good ideas as well.

 

holy shit. That thing is awful. thank god you cleaned it

 

Toyota/Lexus 3.0 V6 FTL

 

Yeah im sure it was a 1 owner

I am replacing all the gaskets and the sensors have been cleaned. Valves are self adjusting along with the lifters.

Im not getting into the expense of replacing fuel injectors since its just my beater that im lucky to put 5K miles a year on.

Amazingly enough this truck ran perfect and smooth since I got it. I would have never torn into the motor except I was loosing coolant around the intake

Thanks for the advice though fuzzy

 

And make sure you pre lube everything before you dry start.

 

Yup already have plans to pour a quart into each valve train before putting the covers back on.

Probably won't come back to life until Saturday though. No time in the evenings.

 

Time to Seafoam!

 

crazy sludge looks so much better now..

 

Man that was nasty...definately a good things you noticed and cleaned it up

 

What did you use to remove the sludge? Brake cleaner?

 

Brake cleaner in the engine and a bucket of gasoline for everything that could be unbolted

 

much better, great work.

 

This looks like a case of an oil package that coagulated(which pennzoil is known for when not brought up to temperature frequently). When you bought this vehicle was it low mileage? The "driven by an old lady" cars often have a lot problems like this, not driving a car at normal operating temperatures frequently is terrible for them.

Nice job with the clean up!

 

Yes it was low mileage when I bought it, 14 years old and only 65K miles. It was actually purchased new by a doctor for his son to take to college. Then became the family's spare vehicle later in its life. Then in the last few years before I got it, it was never driven.

Thanks for the complement

 

I would also pull the oil pan of and look at the lower end. It may need cleaning as well. You should buy the cheapest oil you can and get a can of seafoam or similar cleaner add it to the oil and let the truck idle for 5-15 min with that in it and then drain the oil and add the new stuff

 

That's not a bad idea, if the top end looks like that I'd want to make sure the oil pump isn't nasty looking too.

 

You have to take the engine out or raise it high enough(most cases it's almost out) to clear the front cross member to replaced the pan gasket or oil pan.
At least on 4WD explorer's of that year. Even 2WD it's a bitch.

 

Oil pan isn't coming off. If this was a DD or something I cared about I would get into that effort, but not with this truck.

Im going to flush the oil a few times after its back together. It should be good enough for the results im looking for

 

Paraffin poisoning

 

Please stop the Pennzoil myths, they are false.

Any engine oil can cause this if it was not replaced frequently enough when used in the conditions that you just described.

The sludge was probably caused by the coolant leak or a combination of that and a poor maintenance history.

 

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I wonder what my brother's old Escape looks like. He leased it and didn't change the oil for nearly 2 years IIRC

 

Damn. That's almost like tar. It looks a lot better.

I went too long on my oil change the last time with the cars and never again.

 

auto-rx?

 

There is experience you get in the field that you can't learn/see in a classroom. Oil formulas are constantly changing to meet new standards, so the Pennzoil of 5 years ago, is not the same as the Pennzoil of today. Very early in my days at the shop we had the classic example of a little old lady come in and she had a leaky valve cover, her husband always told her to get leaks fixed so she did. Upon removing the valve cover there appeared to be a film on the underside of the valve cover and we peeled off a 1/2" film that had the imprint of the valve cover embedded in it. It was translucent, like vaseline in color but more jelly like. She used only Pennzoil in the car and very seldom left town. Yes, this was almost 14 years ago now, but back then the "Pennzoil myths" as you call them, were not myths. When you see something like that in real life it tends to leave a foul impression on a brand of oil.

 

True, we seafoamrd my grandma's 2000 Camry I4 with 60,000 miles. It produced more smoke than my dad Jeep with almost 85,000 miles.

 

You can't judge engine condition by how much smoke a seafoam treatment generates

Ive seen people run a nearly new car with seafoam and it filled the block with smoke.

 

yeah I ran it in my 94 & it hardly had any smoke.

 

Nice job on the cleanup Looks like a mini valdez oil spill... Some people would have just changed the gaskets and slapped the valve covers back on

That rocks !! Jello Mold

 

WOW...nice job on that!

..LOL at the brake cleaner comment... i was just tellling me son last weekend that every good home garage needs a can for cleaning stuff up...

 

After looking at these pictures I'm starting to think that the Empire just covered Han Solo in engine sludge.

 

My garage is always stocked with brake cleaner, carb cleaner, and PB Nut Buster

 

Now I know who to hit up for help.

 

wow pretty ugly