So, after digging around and pinpointing a oil leak coming from the rear valley cover of my intake manifold gasket, I go to replace the gaskets and end up scooping over 24 oz of sludge out from under my rover covers. Everything was coated in a heavy layer of old oil that had turned to the consistency of mud. Well, many hours of scrubbing later, i managed to clean most of the top side of the engine, and both rocker assemblies.

Now, the real question is how to ensure that the oil lines in the block are clear and allowing oil to flow to all the necessary places? Is there something that will rapidly breakdown and or liquify the old oil left in the lines? Anything else I should watch out for in the engine? I am planning on pulling the oil pan off to check for additional sludge.

Before digging into this, there was no indicator of oil problems such as oil pressure warnings, unusual ticking sounds, etc.

Thanks

 

Welcome to the Rover motor.....

There isn't a simple quick method once it's attained a thick oil skin. It's baked in so hard it takes labor, professional or your garage. Taking things apart and using carb cleaner, acetone and either diesel or kerosene to do long soaks in. Thin stiff wire, dental pick, brass and plastic parts brushes. You'd be amazed at how much crud is baked and gelled in the rocker shafts alone...... You'll not notice anything complain because even occluded oil galleys create pressure. Once clean you'll notice the pressure drop so be ready to buy a oil pump gear set. The gear set pushes oil before the filter, dirty oil with lots of carbon equals quicker wear than any other post filter.

 

::Marvel Mystery Oil::, idle the engine for 30 min making sure the oil light does not come on.
Change the oil and repeat until you are satisfied you cleaned it out.
You might also want to try this BG Products, Inc., they sell something called "engine purge".

 

Don't forget the oil cooler section of the radiator. I bought a used rad that had the cooler section blocked up as you have described. And you'll want to be sure the PCV system is cleaned out as well. How much of this gunk could be seen thru the oil fill hole?

 

Thanks for all the advice. I'm no stranger to detailed cleanings, but this is my first time performing such actions on an engine.

You could tell that there was some baked on oil when looking into the fill port, but it didn't look particularly bad. I've done a significant amount of scrubbing using ATF and brass and polymer bristle brushes. The ATF works surprisingly well for removing the baked and caked on sludge.