I thought first to send a PM to Frank about an engine I recently worked on, but then thought a discussion here could benefit others that might come across the same or similar situation.
A family friend overheated their 2002 Dodge Ram 1500 4.7 L V8 due to a coolant leak. She continued to drive, not really knowing she could be doing serious harm to the engine. He was out of town at the time. The eventual fix for the external coolant leak that was the original issue, was both a new radiator and a new pressure-type expansion tank.
The engine ran fairly well through all of this, but he soon noticed that his engine oil was overfilled and coolant level still dropping and had been adding water to the expansion tank for some time. He never put these 2 together. When I first pulled the oil dipstick on this engine, it was VERY high on the stick and the resulting chocolate milkshake-looking goo was awful looking. He was starting to get concerned because the engine was making some noise. I drained out 7+ quarts of muck from this 5.5 qt engine. We put in some regular 10W-30 and a new filter and drove it 40 miles to our place.
Since he did not have much money to work with, and is getting ready to move to Atlanta, GA soon, he asked that I keep cost down as much as possible. I used a well-respected block/head sealer solution that works sometimes in cases like this and after the treatment, the water-only coolant level stayed at exactly the same level for 4 days. So we drained the water and reinstalled a 50/50 coolant mix and new t-stat. At the same time I changed the oil again, and this time scooped/cleaned out a bunch of yellowish goo from the rather large oil fill pipe there on the front of the pass. side cylinder head.
After a bottle of much-need fuel system cleaner, this truck now runs and sounds fine at current 117k miles. Spins the rear tires whenever pushed, so no lack of power. Oil is staying clear and not rising on the stick, either. I have not yet convinced him to use some of the Auto-Rx to clean out that gooey sludge, which is sure to cause problems down the road. He says he may trade the truck soon anyway, so that is why he is holding off since it currently runs and sounds fine.
If he agrees to use ARX, I plan to follow the standard sludge instructions unless anyone has something to add for this specific type of contamination. Comments or suggestions?
My hunch is that this gooey sludge wouldn't be too difficult to remove if he'd just take the time to do it. I would first run some very short oil change intervals to flush out the majority of it. Drain the oil when it's warm / hot and allow enough time to get it all out.
Regardless of the ARX application you follow I would change out the oil filter mid way.
-- Edited by TurboJim on Monday 31st of August 2009 09:57:54 AM
Some people don't want to do anything extra once the immediate problem seems gone. But if I were to be looking to buy this vehicle, the first thing I would do is look down into the oil filler cap, and this one has a lot of condensate collecting in that area still due to all the moisture that is still in the crankcase and trying to slowly boil itself out. Maybe we should also take a look at the crankcase vent system as well at some point.
Most folks don't really know that the lanolin esters, the main cleaning ingredient in ARX has appications also in waterbased cooling/lubrication applications in machining. IMO, the lanolin esters in ARX should work wonders in disolving these water/glycol deposits. If it were me I would follow the shortened high sludge application. In other words a short OCI with ARX installed followed by a short OCI rinse.
Ok Rich, I was thinking along those lines with esters being polar and the water/glycol sludge deposits being polar as well, that the Auto-rx would help to fully disslove and clean up anything left over from the several short oil changes. We changed the oil and filter again yesterday and found no more traces of condensate or sludge in the oil cap or tube that goes down into the head. The oil draining out looked exceptionally clear.
So next oil change, he is going to use the Auto-Rx for a somewhat shorter oci, maybe 2000 miles to clean up any sludgey leftovers. For now, it appears that the oil changes have done a lot of good already on the really soft stuff.
