Doesn’t look all that bad. Definitely has a stain to it, but from what I see in these pics, no sludge! You can clean all that up while your there or run 1 quart of trans fluid with your next few oil changes. 5 quarts of 15w40 Rotella and one trans fluid quart. 1000 mile oil changes. You’ll see how dirty it will be when you drain it. Marvel mystery oil works too. If your really concerned about it, after those oil changes you can drop the oil pan and clean it all up down there. Check the oil pump pick up screen make sure it’s not clogged with sludge. The oil pan has a section where they tend to collect all this sludge, bad design! Then the oil pump pick up gets clogged. Good luck.

 

looks like every motor ive ever pulled apart thats been run on non synthetic.

 

Whether you’re using synthetic or conventional that’s the results of not changing your oil on a timely fashion. Synthetic is definitely better quality! but it’s not going to keep your engine any cleaner if you don’t change the oil.

 

I would disagree. The original owner could have changed every 3k miles but dino oil builds up carbon over time. Synthetic doesnt. In the picture below these heads are of of a ls motor with 130k miles, all synthetic and oil was changed every 7500-10k miles.
Every engine ive pulled thats lived on full synthetic is clean as a whistle, regardless of interval.

 

From my experience oil is not the only thing that builds up carbon. the quality of your fuel also has a big part in this. Changing conventional oil every 3000 miles is key. Using premium fuel, and fuel additives will also help carbon and the deposit build up. I have a C6 Corvette with a fully built LS3 I run Mobil 1 full synthetic 5W 40 change it every 4000 miles, and when I drain that oil it’s dirty not filthy but it’s got a stain to it.

 

Sorry but fuel quality has nothing to do with carbon buildup within the crankcase, only within the combustion chamber and intake/exhaust ports. On modern direct injection engines even the intake manifold will have no carbon build up. Maybe if your rings were completely shot I could see where your argument could hold water but now your describing a whole other situation.

 

Yes in a circumstance when rings are worn is what I’m referring to.

 

Did you pull the oil pan?

I dropped one down there and had 9 total when I was done. I found two in the pan.

 

You should address the wire loom, you need new put on, if you disassembled a little more you could change out your injectors.

Now would also be a good time to do head gaskets and see if your lifters are dished. You'd be surprised how responsive your truck gets by putting lifters in that aren't so dished. Use a metal ruler and you'll see what I mean.

 

Yep, fixed and rewrapped the entire wiring harness while doing all this. Didn't have time to do the head gasket unfortunately. It's not leaking right now anyway, but probably will tackle a more comprehensive rebuild next summer. The front and rear crank seals need to be replaced too in the fullness of time.