Under valve cover pics, 92 Cavalier.

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It's a CAVALIER with more than two hundred thousand and people are griping about a bit of varnish? in de good old days before GDI , people knew the rest of the car would not out last the engine. Money for M1 or Amsoil would get you nothing but less money in your pocket.
 
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Add 4 oz of Marvel Mystery oil for every 10 gallons of gas - at every fill up.

I'll bet a very small amount of that varnish goes away (your piston rings will definitely thank you!)
 
Originally Posted by wtd
Originally Posted by TurboLuver
Not bad, I had a 91 many moons ago. Head gasket let go at about 160k, was a known issue, (not enough meat at the driver side front of the head), easiest head gasket job I ever did.
Gave it to my younger brother, he drove it from high school all the way through college, put about another 60k on it before selling it and buying a new car.
Those were the days of 3k mile oil changes, I used PYB.


Every early 2.2L that I have had or people I knew that had them had to have the head gasket replaced, a lot of time at an early mileage. Mine have always leaked in the lower right corner if you are looking at the engine from the front of the car.



Yep. I had one of the same year or close to it. Pretty reliable car, except the head gasket. But they're pretty easy to replace. I think my transmission went out at 240k miles. I don't think the fluid was ever services, so shame on me for that.
 
Originally Posted by OVERKILL
That's definitely some varnish!

And no engine death... Paging Shannow.
lol.gif
 
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Originally Posted by MarkM66
Originally Posted by wtd
Originally Posted by TurboLuver
Not bad, I had a 91 many moons ago. Head gasket let go at about 160k, was a known issue, (not enough meat at the driver side front of the head), easiest head gasket job I ever did.
Gave it to my younger brother, he drove it from high school all the way through college, put about another 60k on it before selling it and buying a new car.
Those were the days of 3k mile oil changes, I used PYB.


Every early 2.2L that I have had or people I knew that had them had to have the head gasket replaced, a lot of time at an early mileage. Mine have always leaked in the lower right corner if you are looking at the engine from the front of the car.



Yep. I had one of the same year or close to it. Pretty reliable car, except the head gasket. But they're pretty easy to replace. I think my transmission went out at 240k miles. I don't think the fluid was ever services, so shame on me for that.



I had the 5 speed manual and afaik it still had the original clutch when my brother sold it.
 
I will have to try the marvel mystery oil. I have some somewhere.

I've replaced the tranny fluid and filter about every 20-30,000 miles since I've owned it but the shifts are a little sluggish. I'm just going to keep driving it until something in the drive train has a major failure.

To be honest, I really never thought about how the inside would look on this car since I was doing regular oil changes with supposedly good oil. I guess I didn't expect to really see much varnish.

I bought my 98 chevy K3500 with the 7.4L in 2007 with 94,600 miles on it and I had to replace the valve cover gaskets soon after I bought it and there was no varnish under the covers at all. I never did take a picture but wish I had.
 
Originally Posted by atikovi
A few doses of Kreen should clean that varnish right up. Now this is how a 200K+ engine CAN look.

[Linked Image]



ooooo that looks beautiful
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Originally Posted by atikovi
A few doses of Kreen should clean that varnish right up. Now this is how a 200K+ engine CAN look.

[Linked Image]



Wow, now that is impressive.
 
Originally Posted by spasm3
You should have seen engines from the 70's. You could scoop sludge from the lifter valleys and valve covers. You could not see the varnish for the sludge.


Yeah, this. I worked at a machine shop in the 80s when I was a young man. It was typical to see an inch or more of sludge under the valve covers, more at the corners where there was a big drainback hole. I've seen a couple of lifter valleys filled completely up with sludge up to the intake manifold! Some pretty gross stuff. People would bring them to us when the oil pressure would be below 10psi at idle, or the idiot light would come on. A lot of those engines just got a hot tanking, a hone, and new rings, bearings, cam and lifters, and they were good for another 100-150K or so.

This Cavalier engine looks pretty good for 230K, the varnish is probably from the 1st owner. The varnish is probably not hurting anything.
 
That is not bad, especially if the majority of oil changes was conventional. That 2.2 push rod engine was a pretty stout. Low tech but got the job done. Easy to work on in all respects.
 
Originally Posted by PimTac
Didn't these Cavaliers suffer from the morning sickness like the Citation did?

If you're talking about the power steering being stiff, yes. I had a 1984 and luckily got a manual rack from the junkyard because all the fluid leaked out and trashed the rack, pump, etc. I had a 1993 and 2002 that never gave me these problems. They got it straight sometime I think in the late 1980s.
 
I'm a big fan of Cavaliers. My son used my 2002 all the way through (5 years lol) of college w/o any problems at all. It's still in the family running trouble free for my sister.
 
Originally Posted by Silverado12
I'm a big fan of Cavaliers. My son used my 2002 all the way through (5 years lol) of college w/o any problems at all. It's still in the family running trouble free for my sister.

I like them. Pretty reliable, gets good gas mileage, and pretty easy to work on. We have 4 or them right now. two 92's, my fiancee's 94, and a 93 parts car that had been rolled that still runs. I've been driving mine for almost 13 years but I think it's on it's last legs. The parts car only has 149,000 miles on it so I may try to put that motor in my 92.
 
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