European market Opel 1.2 engine short distance driven dirty engine pics.

[Flyingdutchman]

In my cloud i came across these pictures that i made 5 years ago while changing the timing chain on this engine.

Its a european market small opel 1.2 4 cylinder 16 valve normaly aspirated engine in a small 3 door hatchback.

This car had 98k miles when i made the pictures. It was 12 years old back then so about 8k miles a year.

I guess this car was mostly used for shorr trips because i know there was also yellow sludge in the valve cover.

With short trips and no real hard driving the oil never reaches it temp to vapour of the gasoline and cold start moisture vapours. I think they are mostly resposible for the varnish you see here.

Dont know about the oil changes but i am guessing every 2 years or so so around 15k miles. That is too long with short distance driving, then you should stick to extreme interval oci.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

It doesn't look that bad

 

[Bailes1992]

That looks okay to me!

 

[Hoot_r]

Oy, an Ecotec -- reminds me of the one in my '07 Aveo. Not the most sophisticated engine, but very reliable (at least in my case).

 

[Kamele0N]

Uffff........my exhad it it in Opel Corsa 1.2 Twinport......90HP

My tunned scooter is faster then that Corsa

 

[Trav]

Seen a lot worse than that.

 

[Flyingdutchman]

In the picture where you can see the timing chain tensioner you can seet the grease like deposits that where in the engine.
Indeed it is not the worst engine in the world, but from my experience most short distance drivin engines look like this one where it gets verry dark coloured reddish and a little laquer grease like coating.

I assume it has to do with fuel dilution and moisture in the oil.

 

[PimTac]

That is what I would call heavily varnished. Since then, have you taken the car out for longer drives?

 

[Flyingdutchman]

That is what I would call heavily varnished. Since then, have you taken the car out for longer drives?

Ive only owned this car for a couple of months because i bought it for the trade because i knew about the stretched timing chain so got it for cheap.

If i had kept this ****box i would probably tried to do a lot of long high speed highway drives with it and use shell/penzoil ultra with 8 or 9k ocis.
I do think this would clean up pretty good after 30 40k.
Laquar/varnish is still cleanable. But the real hard black sludge that you sometimes hear about is not fixable with oil as far as i know.

 

[Flyingdutchman]

Here i also came across some pictures of a Peugeot 1.4 16v engine which the head had to come of due to a leaking head gasket.
The cam bearing ledges were severly scored. This was also a short distance driven ''regulary'' maintained engine.

However it ran fine before it was discovered. No excessive sound, or oil pressure warning etc...