Auto-Rx and dropping the oil pan

[bkrell]

Yes, it's another Auto-Rx question. But I searched, really!

Anyway, I posted on the arx forum and really only got one reply. I kinda want more opinions. I have a moderately sludged/varnished engine and want to use arx. However, I am nervous about clogging the pickup screen in the oil pan. When I inquired over there, they said it'd be fine b/c arx dissolves sludge. I've seen "dissolved" sludge before from solvents like chemtool and though down to fine particles, they are still there and I'd think a pile of them suddenly dislodged and hitting the screen would be a problem.

Am I nuts? Or should I drop the pan perhaps after the first application and check/clear the screen?

 

[Shaman]

I don't think it will be a problem, but I think that if you did, you would be forced by BITOG members to post pictures of them. You could also take off your valve covers too to see how they are doing.

 

[bkrell]

Oh, I'll certainly take off the valve cover. That's not a problem. I just worry where all that stuff inside the valve cover is going to go!

 

[Ken2]

Auto-rx cleans so slowly that it won't result in a large quantity of junk hitting the pickup screen at one time. The 1500 mile cleaning sends particles to the filter little by little.


Ken

 

[Fastride95]

If you're mechanically adept enough to pull the valve cover and pan why not just do that and clean them manually now? More than likely there's already junk on the pickup screen.

ARX may work wonders but if an engine is badly sludged then the engine is badly sludged, period.

Get a decent amount of junk out by hand, seal it up then do the ARX treatment. During the clean phase just have a couple of spare filters on hand and change them out every few hundred miles with a couple additional ounces of ARX and make-up oil. Do two treatments, be happy. No need to pull anything apart again since you know you've done a lot of the dirty work beforehand.

 

[Shaman]

Yeah, it works slowly, some vehicles have been suggested to take the 3rd cycle because the first two left a lot of stuff. If you are going to pull the pan, do it before and get rid of the big stuff you can see to begin with, and do the same thing to the VC