sludged up 89 323 Mazda

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LarryL

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I discovered my son-in-law's 89 Mazda 323 with 199k miles, was completely sludged up. It gets driven less than 2 miles one way to work and back, now, and he was following a friend's advise and changing the oil every 5-6k miles, with dyno oil. Well when I discovered the problem I pulled the pan and valve cover and scrapped and flushed, then gave it two cycles of MMO with filter changes, with a quart of MMO with each cycle. I was really careful in scraping and flushing and the first cycle of MMO and 500 miles of driving places just to put mileage on the engine resulted in a cold filter and a move to the second cycle of the same. I'm starting the third cycle with a big dose of LC and a change to Mobil 1, from a stash in the back of the shop ( a mix of 5w30, 10w30, 0w-40 and a little 15w-50, and 6 oz of Red Line 5w-40 as an additive-it's what's hanging around). As soon as I think the engine is back to normal, I'll run a used oil analysis and see what's really going on. I was surprised at the amount of sludge and how much work it was to clean it up.

So at 2 mile commutes in San Diego, what do you think the oci should be? And what oil? What viscosity?
 
5w30, every 2 months, Mobil 1 ...way above and beyond the call of duty ..but hey ..that engine had the tar beat out of it ..
 
Here's my 2 pesos, conventional 10w30 and a filter every 6 months. I'd also invest in a AutoRX treatment to clean all the internal passages.
 
I personally think dino is the way to go for short trip dirving. As you found out, you gotta either get the motor to temp for a period of time to burn off moisture or change the oil often. I'd go 4 months or 3,000 miles, whichever comes first, 10w30 of your choosing since your in Cali.

I'm experiencing the same problem with a 17,000 mile 2002 Corolla I just bought. Car was used strictly for driving to work and only got 3 oil changes in it's life. Pretty varnishy with very light sludging around the edges; nothing major. But it shows that simply following the 5,000 MILE interval Toyota recomends for severe service is not enough. If you drive that seldom, you gotta play it by time, not mileage. The previous owner of the Corolla obviosuly missed the "or 4 months, whichever comes first" part of the maintinence booklet. Good luck.
 
Drew,

Are Corolla engines know for sludge......like some of the other Toyota engines ???
dunno.gif
 
Someone told me, today, that Costco has Delo 400 15w40 in cases (4X1 gallon jugs) and the price works out to a buck a quart. Maybe, a mix might do the trick. 1 qt Mobil 1 0w30 (the oil my sil uses in his 02 Odyssey and I can steal it when he's not looking) and almost 3 qts Delo 400. He gets the Mobil 1 with a PEP Boys calendar coupon (all you Mobil 1 users should grab oine), which makes the price about 3 bucks a quart, plus 3 quarts of Delo, that adds 3 bucks, again, for a total of 6 bucks plus another Pep Boys coupon for Purolator filters that makes 3 bucks for a filter for a total of 9 bucks for an oil change, plus a big dose of LC for less than a buck for a total of 10 bucks. Then an ounce of LC every 100 miles and change the oil every 4 months. If I force him to go on a longer drive every month, say 25 miles this engine could creap up on 500 miles every oil change, yiiiikes. I guess that would not be too bad if it worked and 8 months with a used oil analysis should help with that answer.
 
The ARX will never work with 2 mile trips ..the oil has to heat up.. i said Mobil 1 because he already has ir ..but if youwant to go Dino the delo dlvac or rotella are great ..I would just change it very frequantly for quit a while as it will remain a dirty engine for many moons ..if you have LC 2 OZ per qt the 3 OZ per 1000 .afte ..but at 2 imles per day I don't think you ever will it 1000 miles per drain !
 
quote:
Originally posted by LT4 Vette:
Drew,

Are Corolla engines know for sludge......like some of the other Toyota engines ???
dunno.gif

Click to expand...
No, I don't think so, but from having 2 of them, and older one and a newer one, I'd say the newerones are more prone to the problem because of incerased operating temps.

The previous owner of my 02 simply didn't do enough oil changes. Toyota is STRICT about 5,000 miles or 4 months, whichever comes 1st. In fact, if I do have a warrenty claim on this engine, I may be up **** creek with no paddle cause the oil change history doesn't meet Toyota's stipulations. Even says in the warrenty booklet if your engine sludges and you don't have paperwork conforiming to their oil chagne requirements, they are not responsible. LC is already in at a 10 ounce super does and Auto-RX is sitting on my workbench ready to git r done so I'm not too worried.
cheers.gif
 
Drew, I think you're on the right track. I'd do AutoRX but I'm going to try to fix it with stuff I already have in the shop, that is a bunch of M1 bottles, and some LC and FP. The only purchase is going to be some Delo 400 and I'm going to convince someone around here that they want to run Delo in their engine. Failing that, I'll just run M1. I spent a lot of time scraping and flushing the engine with the valve cover and pan off. The car is old and has a lot of miles on it, but, even while cleaning the sludge up, it runs great, so it's worth fixing, even though it's worth nothing. I'd hate to see how bad the sludge problem would be with a new car. It would probably be a lot worse.
 
M-1 does not have enough esters to break free the sludge and crap, IMHO.

I had 1 year's run on my wifey's Camry Vee6 (high mileage, poorly maintained) 2 years ago (after we acquired the car) and it only did very minimal cleaning after running 23000kms of M-1 (10W30).

Gave up on M-1 completely and did AutoRx and after 1st run the a significant portion of the sludge/varnish has been washed away. Now her Camry is into 2nd AutoRx cleaning and I can feel quite a bit of improvements in terms of fuel economy, idle smoothness (a good way to gauge how well your computer-controlled ignition system is behaving and also your motor oil's lubricating the engine parts). mild seal leaks on this engine is all but gone (added bonus)
 
quote:
Originally posted by LarryL:
What's really needed is a sludge test, that you can give a car, without taking it apart, to catch a sludge problem before it does damage and early enough to fix it with chemicals.
Click to expand...
Can't this be done now through used oil analysis?
 
I hope the LC will do the dirty work, like deepsquat says, the AutoRX needs to be driven more to work. And the Delo 400 should help, too. I'm actually taking the car, myself, for a trip next week and I'll make sure it gets warmed up and driven at the highest freeway speed I can get away with, without getting a ticket. I't going to be about 100 or so miles. It's going to get about 4 ounces of LC at the start. I think this process of clean up has to start with not doing any more damage. When I did the clean out with the pan off I got enough sludge to fill up both hands.

What's really needed is a sludge test, that you can give a car, without taking it apart, to catch a sludge problem before it does damage and early enough to fix it with chemicals. Maybe one of the blenders on this site could come up with a formula that could be poured into the crankcase, run in the engine, and then pull the dipstick out and hold it up to a color chart for a sludge rating. Sounds like there's a product in there somewhere that would make a business.
 
I hope the LC will do the dirty work, like deepsquat says, the AutoRX needs to be driven more to work. And the Delo 400 should help, too. I'm actually taking the car, myself, for a trip next week and I'll make sure it gets warmed up and driven at the highest freeway speed I can get away with, without getting a ticket. I't going to be about 100 or so miles. It's going to get about 4 ounces of LC at the start. I think this process of clean up has to start with not doing any more damage. When I did the clean out with the pan off I got enough sludge to fill up both hands.

What's really needed is a sludge test, that you can give a car, without taking it apart, to catch a sludge problem before it does damage and early enough to fix it with chemicals. Maybe one of the blenders on this site could come up with a formula that could be poured into the crankcase, run in the engine, and then pull the dipstick out and hold it up to a color chart for a sludge rating. Sounds like there's a product in there somewhere that would make a business.
 
LarryL, I would be useing a lot of LC in this engine for the next 4 oil changes. I would use 4 onces of LC per quart of oil and 3 onces every 1000 miles. I would be useing a good conventional oil and changeing the oil every 3 months. I like Chevron Supreme,Havoline and Delo 400. I would start out with a 5W30 for the first two oil changes and work my way up to a the 15W40! As more and more sludge is disolved into the oil it will thicken up. At this point you want to optimize flow until the pickup screen and galleys are clean!

I would also encorage the boy to get out a bit more! Surely he can take his girlfriend to the warf in San Francisco for some dinner or drive to Napa Valley for some wine tasteing or go north for some hikeing etc.... He needs to drive this thing some more and get it up to operateing temp. a bitmore often! Short 2 mile trips are killers!!!

The more miles he drives it the faster and more effective the Lube Control is going to work! Keep an eye on the oil level at first it is going to be a bit over full with the LC but it will consume it quickly! As it cleans that engine consuption will go up initialy!!
 
John, he's my sil, married to my daughter, I hope he does not run around with a girl friend. And you're describing about what we are planning to do.

benjamming, I'm thinking of a test where you take some oil off a dip stick of a warm engine, and do the test yourself, in the driveway, and get an answer. That would be a lot easyer and cheaper than a typical uoa.

I've got to say, though, that this old 323 is a pretty good car. I bought if for my Daughter when she was in college and she has never had problems. In fact, the maintenance was a lot better when her and I did it. This son-in-law is the one that has dropped the ball. Now we're going to play catch-up. She knows a lot more about car mechanics then he ever will. She grew up with a Dad that owned a shop that built race cars and engines (me).
 
Just did an oil change and it's getting cleaner under that valve conver. I still have some left over M1 in various viscosities and a good dose of LC. There is also going to be at least one quart of Dello 400 in there to, borrowed it from a truck driver. This engine has seen more oil changes in a month than in the past year.
 
Go back in the arcives if there still there or get in touch with Frank from ARX.ARX should be used with the lightest viscosity oil allowed when clean & rinse. That is what I did used Chevron 5w30 for both.I may be wrong but ask Frank to be sure cause it may make the difference.
 
I can't go back far enough where I was told by one of the experts about the low viscosity but I took that as a good idea.I am glad you pointed this out because I didn't read this before. In addition, you should continue to use non-synthetic oil for maximum benefit. Frank used to tell people use what ever type oil you choose after cleaning.Perhaps the conventional is a better mix for ARX.
dunno.gif
 
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