So I dropped the leaking (rust through) oil pan on my 1998 Mazda 626 with a little over 200,000 miles and I'm greeted by this oil pickup which is AFTER I sprayed it down with brake cleaner. I was able to use a fine wire brush to gently scrub it off with carb cleaner then soaked it in some strong all purpose cleaner and got it 100% cleaned up looking like new. Now the obvious answer would be 'neglect' but here's the catch, I've had this car since about 100,000 or so miles and know the previous owner pretty well, they used the car for a lot of short trips as they rode a train to work which was near their home. It may have been ran on quick lube oil and filter but I know it was changed regularly, since I've owned it I've used either synthetic blend Valvoline MaxLife or Mobil 1 synthetic oils with decent or good filters and changed every 5-6,000 miles on time with few short trips. Rest of inside the engine has normal varnish one would expect for a high mile engine, no thick buildup. Bottom of the pan had a couple areas with a thicker layer of buildup like a really thick varnish but nothing crazy. I dumped in some Seafoam to the oil for about 100 miles prior to this and then doubled the dose about 2 days prior to dropping the pan and let it idle for a bit then sit over a weekend and some more idling a couple more times before removal. This stuff was not loose on the pickup like it was newly loosened crud from the Seafoam, it was hard plastic like and not coming off with solvents.
What caused this?
What caused this?
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