Sludgy 1990 F150 5.0

So we broke the old (all black) STP oil filter loose. It was dated 2018, very heavy but looked OK.
Put it back on to plug the hole. Drained the existing, unknown, oil cold. About 6 quarts came out looking pretty black.
Fishing around through the drain bolt oil hole found dirty oil but no sludge or clumps.

We got the parts cleaner and poured a gallon straight into the pan via the oil dipstick hole.
We could hear the liquid hitting the metal pan as we poured.

Intend to let that simmer for a few days to clean the pan, screen and oil pump then see what it looks like coming out.
 
Drained the 1 gallon of parts washer from the F150 oil pan as it was sitting for 2 days.
Came out like very thin oil with a bit of solids in the very bottom.

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So at this point Kerosene sat in the pan for a few days and was drained. Came out clearer but darkened with some solid debris as before. Seems like the oil pump, screen and pan should be pretty clean at this point. Also the lifters have each been removed, dis-assembled and cleaned up. They were each stuck in the downward position as they were sludgy but more toward the wet side. The fuel injectors were also cleaned and rebuilt with new o-rings, screens and caps. Fuel rail was cleaned and a new thermostat was installed.

Cheap oil will be used with a fresh filter for a 20 minute idle to remove chemicals and to catch what the oil filter can.
The old original STP oil filter will be opened and pictures posted.

Before the top gets reassembled, any other easy things we should do?
 
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More progress. Son got the rest assembled and oil flush done. A few tweeks and it came back to life. Timing set and oil filled.
Traveller 10w30 oil and a Fram filter run for 0 miles, 30 minutes at idle to flush chemicals and more junk out.

Oil filter opened in these pictures is the black STP unit originally on the truck. Seemed to be pretty well built but had a bit of a pant load.

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Great progress. How many short OCI do you plan on running or just frequent filter changes and cut them open to see the progress of the sludge being cleaned out?
 
I would pull the pan and check the oil pickup. If the truck is 2wd it's usually not very difficult. Then you'll be looking right at the oil pickup. Just make sure it's not looking plugged up.
 
Pulling the pan would have been ideal but we do not have the tools/ability to get to that point thus the parts washer and the Kerosene soak in the pan. We had planned to run the Mobil 1 5w30 that we had for a while with oil filter changes for about 3k miles total but we may be out of luck at this point. ☹️

The AOD transmission did not want to downshift before but now it does not want to go into any gears except reverse, neutral and first. TV cable messed with but no joy. So we are going to start reading about transmission removal but not sure if we can do it and where to go with it if we can get it out.

Here are the oil filter pictures from the 30 minute oil run.

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Definitely some hard crud in there, but, it could have gone quite a bit longer. I'd be comfortable running it at least 500 miles. If you can get the transmission to work.
 
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