well, my oil never got black in either phase, and I'm sorry but there is nothing so magical that the oil wont change to start looking black until after 750 miles or as I approach 1500 during the cleaning phase. No, the oil stayed looking nice yellow-brown, more or less like new. Same for the flush portion, left in for about 1500 mi. Never started to look black, dark brown or anything out of the ordinary.
I cut (well, pulled, as they arent in a cannister)apart both filters, and never saw anything that looked abnormal. i was looking for clumps of junk, etc., as seen in the picture linked to above, or in other simialr pics elsewhere on the site. Once again... If it was doing on the engine that was significant, evidence would have been there by 750 miles on the clean phase and 1500 mi on the rinse. Its slow but does not just go from clean to dirty, evidence will be there from day two or so, and build up from there.
So, based upon the metrics given in frank's last post, it is apparent that I didnt really need an auto-rx application in this engine anyway. Thats OK... I just had the bottle that I figured Id use, Im fine with that. And there may have been something that got cleaned or loosened that caused the tapping sound. Gary's post quieted any worries, and all is well. I asked a question about the lifters and the mechanical sound, and so lets talk about that, not 750 vs 1500 mi auto-rx intervals... That wasnt the basis of my question. I might as well have said that I did a 15 minute kerosine flush, I would have gotten less beef about that.
JMH
