Originally Posted By: LckydevL
Quaker State sludged up and killed one of my vehicles about 20yrs or so ago. A tough as iron Ford inline six, 300 or 4.9 or something like that. My mechanic, who knows I take care of my vehicles. Was in complete shock when he took off the valve covers and eventually the oil pan. Total sludgefest, I almost puked when I saw the damage.
Well, in the so-called sludge days, I used QS 10w30 conventional for 6,000 mile OCIs in fleet usage, with no problems. No sludge, no blown engine.
As for the 4.9 issues you had, it's really easy to blame the oil. Were all other potential issues checked? What was the PCV valve like? I've had PCV problems with my 300. Oil went from milkshake back to perfect after replacement. What about the carb? Ford's experiments with reducing emissions at the time resulted in some very, very poor carbs causing extremely heavy fuel dilution. OCIs? Driving style?
My 300 had some serious problems, too, and it certainly wasn't my choice of oil. The previous owner treated oil as a lifetime fill, and did a half-baked rebuild in the interim, and continued to use oil as a lifetime fill. Sludge never became in issue because of very frequent OCIs and a quality PCV, along with long drives and HDEO in summer and Valvoline HM in winter, which resulted in a very clean engine before my final rebuild.
The next thing that happened was the 1 barrel carb going to the scrap heap. The 300 is a great, stout engine. However, early emissions carbs, poor rebuilds, excessively long OCIs, and failed PCV valves will cause issues.