UPDATE: 1997 Camry 5SFE

[SMB]

Hello, this is the original thread.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubb...490#Post1337490

Well I have finally removed my valve cover gasket again after I finished my Auto RX treatment. I promised you after photos and here they are.

Now @ 188K miles, I have change the oil twice since I finished the ARX treatment @ 180K.

Current fill is Exxon Superflo 10w-30.

Here are pictures:

and here is my engine:

 

[Nayov]

Not much difference compared w/before pics. Maybe PP will clean it "46%" better.

 

[Johnny248]

I have a '96 and 155k on it, I think those engines are pretty hard on oil and never stay super clean, but I don't buy into this Auto-RX stuff for $25 a bottle or whatever. If someone wants to "clean" their engine, there are many different engine flush's that are much less expensive and clean also. I just used some Wynns engine flush on a car with 133k on it, put a new filer on it and ran it for 30 min. I cut open that filter and there was a ton of [censored] in the pleats.

 

[ZZman]

Since this is mostly varnish there wasn't alot to clean per say.

However it looks like it did lighten the varnish a little.

**Would have been easier if you reduced size of pictures with a program for faster loading and you put one before and one after pic next to each other for easy comparison.

 

[saberz]

Varnish was lightened, but its not harmful, you can still see some deposits in the images. I'd have whooped out a toothbruth and went to town on it. It's a labor of love.

 

[bustednutz]

ARX is a product I never really bought into. The varnish looks lighter and there is less sludge in the small canals then the b4 photo. At this point I'd run a quart of Marvels with a change of synthetic oil for 5000 miles. Then I'd look at it again.

 

[Liquid_Turbo]

Thanks for the update. Varnish looks a tad lighter.

Perhaps try a run of PP or M1? PP is supposed to have "cleaning" ability.

 

[JohnBrowning]

that engine looks like it has been on a dino oil diet. It is filthy with varnish! Next oil change I would put a can of B12 Chemtool one entire can inthat engine and idle it at 1500 RPM's for 30 minutes then Change the oil. Put in 4 quarts of M1 0W40 and after winter is over take the valve cover off and lets see if it looks better!Not only has that car lived on Dino it getting some long OCI's it was not geting 3000 miles oil changes I can assure you just fromt he appearance of the varnish!

 

[deven]

Originally Posted By: JohnBrowning
that engine looks like it has been on a dino oil diet. It is filthy with varnish! Next oil change I would put a can of B12 Chemtool one entire can inthat engine and idle it at 1500 RPM's for 30 minutes then Change the oil. Put in 4 quarts of M1 0W40 and after winter is over take the valve cover off and lets see if it looks better!Not only has that car lived on Dino it getting some long OCI's it was not geting 3000 miles oil changes I can assure you just fromt he appearance of the varnish!


I really don't think it is due to the fact that conventional oil was used. I think it has to do with owner use of conventional oil BUT neglected to do reasonable OCI's.

 

[SMB]

Yes the varnish is harmless but it looks a little lighter. I still have another bottle of ARX that I will use soon.

Not planning anytime to remove the cover again, I have some PP in my oil stash and will use them later.

 

[gonesurfing]

Looks about like my wife's 94, which we just gave away and still running strong. Sooner or later you'll need to pull the oil pump housing and oil pan off to replace the dry rotted o-rings and gaskets. When you do, take a look at the bottom end of the engine. Despite the deposits under the valve cover, our 5S-FE was spotless on the bottom end.

I was doing 4-5K OCI's. Never bothered with a UOA, as the car was not worth much. It had a salvage title from being rear ended. The engine used a quart of oil over one OCI. I know for a fact it saw irregular maintenance by it's previous owner.

 

[paulo57509]

Originally Posted By: gonesurfing
......Sooner or later you'll need to pull the oil pump housing and oil pan off to replace the dry rotted o-rings and gaskets......


I have a 3S-FE in my Camry and this is so true.

I'm waiting a few months to tackle this job when I do the timing belt.

 

[SMB]

Originally Posted By: paulo57509
Originally Posted By: gonesurfing
......Sooner or later you'll need to pull the oil pump housing and oil pan off to replace the dry rotted o-rings and gaskets......


I have a 3S-FE in my Camry and this is so true.

I'm waiting a few months to tackle this job when I do the timing belt.


My mechanic already replaced the oil pump o-ring and gaskets when he did my timing belt job @ 180K miles.

 

[daman]

Not much of a diff,M1 from day one would have done better.

 

[PT1]

Looks like a candidate for PP to me...

 

[lipadj46]

My engine looked like that when I cracked it open at 100,000 miles (lot of varnish a little bit of sludgy deposits). It was fed mainly dino at reasonable but not religious OCI's of 3-4k miles. I cleaned up the top end and have been using M1 15W-50 and Rotella 5W-40 since in an effort to clean things up on the bottom end. I also put 1/2 quart MMO in for the last 500 miles of the OCI. I have to change the front cover gasket in the spring so the oil pan will come off then so see how things are going. I plan on driving the truck into the ground hopefully well over (250k miles) so I will wait for the oil to do it's thing.

 

[senquack]

My '94 Mazda MX-6 V6's engine looks a lot cleaner than that under the valve covers. I bought it used at 85,000 miles and only used dino oil at a 5,000 OCI. At 120,000 miles I had the covers off and it looked nice and clean, nothing like this(slight sticky varnish on cover's surfaces that is easily removed with some acetone and a rag).

So, I think dino oil, at least at 5,000 mile intervals is not going to cause this sort of varnishing. Maybe it's the engine as some are suggesting? Or ridiculous intervals like others are.

I did do 2 Auto-RXs at 120,000 miles just for the heck of it and now at 143,000 miles it looks, well, about the same as at 120,000 miles.

Always interesting to see the inside of another engine, thanks for the post!

 

[lipadj46]

Originally Posted By: senquack
So, I think dino oil, at least at 5,000 mile intervals is not going to cause this sort of varnishing. Maybe it's the engine as some are suggesting? Or ridiculous intervals like others are.


Probably could be either or both. I bought my truck used (55,000 mi) but the women I bought it from changed the oil at the proper intervals at the dealership (records to prove it). Then I never went over 5,000 miles but this was 75,000 miles of NYC driving plus 1 overheat event (hence the head gaskets) and then 25,000 miles of country driving.

 

[Max_Wander]

I've never used ARX or any other flush product in our 97, just SuperTech (Safety-Kleen) synthetic, MaxLife and now a RedLine 0w10 blend, and it is much cleaner than that. The spark plug tubes show an archeological breakdown of previous varnish layers, and there is zero sludge in the engine. It's pushing 330+ KM's or something right now. I'm not sure how much better ARX works compared to a good synth oil. I'm sure that most of the "cleaning" process started with the use of the SJ rated Safety-Kleen synthetic, it must have had some good solubiility.

 

[JohnBrowning]

deven their is a distinct difference between what dino does versus a true synthetic in an engine. Having torn apart thousands of engines I speak from experience. You can run 15,000-25,000 mile Oil Change Intervals with a PAO synthetic with pre SM GF3 additive packages for 300,000 and pull the valve cover and see a clean engine free of any varnish. On the other hand you can run 5000-7500 mile OCI's with dino and end up with what we see above especially when talking about pre-SM/GF3 oils.

I have never seen the inside of a vehicle run on Dino for 200,000-300,000 that did not have some varnish usually serious varnish!Now that Dino's are slowly having to use better and better base stock to meet requirement things are slowly changing. Given time we will see a day when all dino is GIII and then the synthetics will go back to being 100% PAO or PAO/POE blends etc..... because they will have to in order to justify their market postion as the dino get's better and better but it will be a while.

All dino oils leave varnish behind. Even PAO if heated high enough will leave varnish. POE and other high ester's will not. Their was a member on this site that had a proprietary test he use's at work. It is basically a sloped metal plate that is heated to some temperature that he did not disclose. It looked like stainless steel to me. They drip various oils blends on this contrapation and based on the results that is how they select their oils I guess. In ever test that this guy has done all oils that are dino or PAO have left deposits only the ester oils leave a clean piece of steel.

I do not live in Candy Land and my life is not made of cotton candy and cinnamon. Just because I do not often use an Ester based fluid due to cost does not mean they are not the best their is! Too many members on this sight feel like what ever they use must be the best and if someone says anything at all about what you use they must be out to get ya!!!! This is nonse science is science and everything else is garbage. It is not like I made up the chemical properties of the various base stocks they are all published and well known! I am the type that does not have to have the best I just need something that is good enough to get the job done at the right price point! Just because I use something or own something does not make it the best.

Oil is a combination of tribology and chemistry it is not voodoo.

I do not think that the Toyota in question was neglected drastically or abused. I think it has seen OEM recommended OIL changes at best prior to it's current owner or at worst the Jiffy Lube reported national average of 9000 miles between oil changes. That was in Lube's and Greases a few years back. The guy in charge of Jiffy Lube had that number documented from those customers that use their service and it is fair to say that it is representative of the population at large that do not change their own oil!

In fact when I preped my 22RE for off road racing it had 80K miles on it. WHen my Dad owned it the oil was changed every 1500-1800 miles. When I bought it from him and started useing synthetic it prob. had around 70,000 miles. So after 10,000 miles of 5K OCI's with Synthetic it still had a very light coating of varnish at tear down. Now by light I mean I was able to clean it all off with either just a rag or a little bit of solvent on a rag. It was not hard varnish and it was not thick but it was still their. Now oil have improved a lot since the 1980's and early 1990's with reguard to dino. Varnish has nothing to do with an oils ability to prevent wear it has to do with how clean it leaves the engine. Seals live longer lives if no varnish ever forms of them. Varnish speeds oxidation of fresh oil and can cause hot spots.IF their is varnish ont he top of the engine then their is varnish on the sides of the pistons and every place else. If you can see the most minimal varnish on an oil pick-up screen then you have just lost 30% of the oil flow that your engine was designed to have. That is with the lighteest sings of visable varnish not heavy varnish! Oil Flow is often more important then pressure to keeping an engine together!