Friend's Sludge Monster

[gumby_66]

My Friend (Ok he's my only real oil nut buddy)

was using Mobil 1 SS extended drains, then for some ungodly reason

he decided to switch to Castrol Syntec and do the same extended drains.

Now his 1996 Buick Century with 3.1 V6 with 88K, looking in his valve cover there is a lot of sludge. Its soft like tar.
The PCV valve is clogging up weekly.

He was having problems with the PCV valve clogging, so he did an Amsoil engine flush and put Amsoil 5w30 in it.

I believe that the Castrol caused the sludge because of the extended drain and the engine flush softened the sludge and the Amsoil is trying to clean up causing a monthly PCV valve clogging to a weekly problem.

The big question - best way to cleanup this mess?

Steve

[ March 07, 2004, 11:18 AM: Message edited by: gumby_66 ]

 

[therion]

I would run the Amsoil Flush a couple times, until the PCV stops sticking. And to clean it out completly, run a dose of Auto-RX.

The engine should be spotless after that.

 

[Not the Autorx Frank]

pull the valve cover and break out the shop vac and the gasoline
then do arx.

 

[Dick in Falls Church]

I'd be inclined to send in an oil sample, just to see if there is anything else which could have caused the sludge. Should have at least 1000 miles on the oil before a sampling.

 

[GROUCHO MARX]

Was he doing 18k OCIs with Mobil 1 as well?

 

[gumby_66]

Yes and that 18K kilometers for us metric people in Canada.

Steve

 

[FowVay]

If the symptoms just started this winter and you are seeing a gel or tar like substance then I'd suspect coolant ingestion. It may be caused by the oil but I believe it's just coincidence that he started using a different brand of oil when this happened.

Believe it or not Castrol Syntec isn't that bad of a product.

 

[gumby_66]

The car had 18K with castrol syntec on it before the flush.

He had no problems until this winter.

He reports no loss of antifreeze, GM v6 suppose to have problems with cheap manifold gasket.

Steve