This is my 3rd 3.8 liter Caravan/Town and Country. I am getting pretty experienced with them.
This time around, I replaced a crack rear head (someone thought putting JB weld in there was cute before I got it resulting in bubbling coolant).
The van sat for a month in a carport with the head and the intake off in a carport that leaks water everywhere and with a tarp on it that kept blowing off. The motor drowned in quite a bit of water.
I went to start it thinking that I could get some sort of mix in there that would survive a few hundered miles and then drain it....penny wise and pound foolish I guess it happens to us all.
I ran it for 10 minutes after putting it all together and then the water pump area started sounding funny. I shut it down right away and started it back up. It started idling at about 500 rpms and hesitating. I shut it down and looked at the dipstick. It was completely sludged up with a thick tan color.
I drained all the oil out, took any oil I could find around and with the engine off put some 20w-50 through there...then some synthetic 5w30 through there then some Dexron 3 I had laying around. Waited until it had all drained out and put some of that free Valvoline Next 10w30 in there along with a DriveWorks oil filter. Oil filter housing was still sludged up after that but engine ran fine afterwards.
Questions:
1) How many times after this should I change the oil/filter and under what intervals before I can consider the oil clean again?
2) What sort of oil would you run in this thing long term? Since I just replaced the rear head, I am a bit tired of working on this thing and although I love synthetic and like long term oil change intervals I don't want to risk leaks and my time is precious with 4 other vehicles. I guess I have to factor in consumption and since I haven't owned the vehicle long I don't know what consumption is. Vehicle only has 133k miles.
3) Why did the motor act like this with water in it? Sorry, I am engine dumb still. (Just want to make sure that the engine would have run like this with oil/water mix before I invest in registering it/having it inspected etc). Want to make sure it's not something else. No oil in the coolant during the incident. Coolant level is not dropping either.
Thoughts?
Thank you
This time around, I replaced a crack rear head (someone thought putting JB weld in there was cute before I got it resulting in bubbling coolant).
The van sat for a month in a carport with the head and the intake off in a carport that leaks water everywhere and with a tarp on it that kept blowing off. The motor drowned in quite a bit of water.
I went to start it thinking that I could get some sort of mix in there that would survive a few hundered miles and then drain it....penny wise and pound foolish I guess it happens to us all.
I ran it for 10 minutes after putting it all together and then the water pump area started sounding funny. I shut it down right away and started it back up. It started idling at about 500 rpms and hesitating. I shut it down and looked at the dipstick. It was completely sludged up with a thick tan color.
I drained all the oil out, took any oil I could find around and with the engine off put some 20w-50 through there...then some synthetic 5w30 through there then some Dexron 3 I had laying around. Waited until it had all drained out and put some of that free Valvoline Next 10w30 in there along with a DriveWorks oil filter. Oil filter housing was still sludged up after that but engine ran fine afterwards.
Questions:
1) How many times after this should I change the oil/filter and under what intervals before I can consider the oil clean again?
2) What sort of oil would you run in this thing long term? Since I just replaced the rear head, I am a bit tired of working on this thing and although I love synthetic and like long term oil change intervals I don't want to risk leaks and my time is precious with 4 other vehicles. I guess I have to factor in consumption and since I haven't owned the vehicle long I don't know what consumption is. Vehicle only has 133k miles.
3) Why did the motor act like this with water in it? Sorry, I am engine dumb still. (Just want to make sure that the engine would have run like this with oil/water mix before I invest in registering it/having it inspected etc). Want to make sure it's not something else. No oil in the coolant during the incident. Coolant level is not dropping either.
Thoughts?
Thank you
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