Fill the engine with 20 gallons of paint thinner, and let it sit for about 2 years. :lol:

Honestly, your only hope is to slowly dissolve the crud. A high mileage engine oil will work (very slowly) as well as Seafoam combined with frequent oil and filter changes. Some people swear by Auto-RX. I have personally never used it, there is also MMO (magic mystery oil) which I have also never used.

The key is to slowly have the junk washed away. It can take literally years, but eventually most of it will flush away.

edit - it's Marvel Mystery Oil not magic haha.

 

if you have no oil leaks then it should be fairly safe to switch it to 5W-30 or 10W-30 full synthetic oil like Mobil1 FS or Valvoline SynPower (this oil has a funny green color). driving on it with shortened intervals (2.5k miles tops) could wash it away within a year or two, then you could do auto-rx or sea foam for peace of mind

alternatively you could use Castrol GTX (it has a good detergent cleaning package, i think best among dino) but you would need to follow really strict OCI, like 1k-1.5k miles tops.

I wouldn't dare using sea foam or auto-rx now. run it on synthetics for a few months, then re-check the valve cover and decide whether it's safe for the treatment or not yet.

stick to best filters out there Mobil1/WIX/OEM/Denso/Pureone, anything else will be a risk. I would even swap the filters half way through the shortened OCI to be on safe side (top up 0.2qts oil after swapping the filter only).

what OCI and oils/filters have you been using ? do you have pics of sludge in your valve cover ?

 

BTW, you can get cheap OEM filters (10-pak) from dealer at $39.99, $4.99 s/h:
http://www.trademotion.com/partlocator/index.cfm?siteid=215498

 

Auto-RX is the only way to go. If yer brave, you could carefully scrape the crud off making sure none of it drops into the engine...use a shop-vac to suck it up as yer scraping it off though.

 

The simplest and least riskiest way is to run full synthetic.

5w30 and a good filter, Napa Gold or Wix would be the best. Run that along with whatever synthetic oil you prefer and change every 3k for a long, long time.

I wouldent get a filter more expensive then the Wix which is about 6$. Your not going to be running the oil long enough to justify getting anything better.

I personally think auto rx is bs. Ive never seen it work. Sea Foam is way to agressive at this point.

 

There are a few options, depending on how aggressive you want to be.

First, don't panic -- your engine is running and isn't burning oil, right? So the sludge isn't doing major harm. Let's keep it that way. The big, big danger with a heavily sludged engine is to use aggressive solvents / motor flushes to clean things up "fast" -- you'll get the crusty chunks breaking loose and clogging up your oil pump pickup screen. Game over. The only safe way to get away with this is to wire in a real oil pressure gauge and monitor it religiously...the oil pressure idiot light has such a low threshold, that it's basically only good for telling you that "you're screwed". I don't recommend this approach at all.

Clean up or replace the PCV valve and the two breather hoses -- the PCV valve is probably completely clogged, and the hoses might be.

A pretty low-risk, high-payoff strategy would be to switch to a good high-detergent dino oil (such as Castrol GTX) and keep the OCI under 3000 miles. I've seen 5S-FEs run with GTX all their lives, and they're clean enough to eat off of. It will also slowly clean up the crap you do have.

A somewhat more aggressive option would be to take a shopvac (with a set of tiny pickups...Home Depot sells a nice set) and a plastic scraper, and clean up as much crust as possible in the area under the valve cover (be sure to plug any oil passages with rags before starting -- you want minimal junk getting away from you). Soak the valve cover overnight in a big bucket of paint thinner and flush it out with a pressure washer to clean out the breather passages to the PCV valve.

If you want to get even more aggressive, drop the oil pan and clean that out. While in there, check the oil pump pickup screen, and change it out if it's looking pretty gunked.

Since you've changed out most of the seals, long-term you might want to switch to a synthetic -- they're way less prone to sludging. However, most are very low in detergents, so they won't do that great of a job cleaning up what you currently have.

 

did it look worse than what was lurking in my motor:

http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=160021&highlight=sludge+pics

that was at 114k miles and im not at about 176k and still running strong. you can read what i did there, but since then ive been only changing the oil every 3,500 - 4k miles. *knocks on wood*

 

did it look worse than what was lurking in my motor:

http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=160021&highlight=sludge+pics

that was at 114k miles and im not at about 176k and still running strong. you can read what i did there, but since then ive been only changing the oil every 3,500 - 4k miles. *knocks on wood*

Ghettosled, mine looks almost exactly like yours looked before you fixed it.

Your thread has so many replies in it that I could not tell exactly what you did. Would you mind repeating your procedure here?

Thanks, Frank.

 

Adding to above:

How much is it driven monthly and what type of driving does it get?

If the answer is daily short runs a 3000mile interval is way to long. Cut it in 1/2 or even a 1000miles. Long runs at sustained temperatures will help it the most. Think road trip. . .

As stated above, its like a people; break a clot free plugging something and it'll kill it!
Be very careful if you chunk it away and plug the return holes as suggested by Hill, as you don't want any clots in a return hole or pickup screen. The more aggressive you get with cleaning the quicker the filter should be replaced. There is no law against replacing the filter twice in a 2000 mile oil change OR use a big filter like this for a while:

NAPA WIX Part Number: 51515
Principal Application: Ford Family of Cars/Trucks (57-00), Toyota Landcruiser (71-96). I use this if I know I broke chunks loose and then return to normal filter size on next OC interval.

The last thing you want is a smaller filter to run in by-pass mode because it plugged. So use a larger filter or change it more often.

 

There is no law against replacing the filter twice in a 2000 mile oil change OR use a big filter like this for a while:

NAPA WIX Part Number: 51515
Principal Application: Ford Family of Cars/Trucks (57-00), Toyota Landcruiser (71-96). I use this if I know I broke chunks loose and then return to normal filter size on next OC interval.

The last thing you want is a smaller filter to run in by-pass mode because it plugged. So use a larger filter or change it more often.

Will this filter fit a 1998 4 cylinder Camry? It seems the Wix 51515 has a bigger diameter (3.66in) than the Camry's oil filter (2.685in, part# 51394). I did find the 51396, which is for the Rav4; it has the same diameter as the 51394 but is a little bit longer. Thanks for your help!

 

Does anyone have some real data supporting synthetics having better cleaning oxidents than dyno?

I think you'd get more bang per buck doing 1000 mile intervals on dyno fluid than running expensive sythetic 3000miles. Your goal is to get it out and cheap filters typically don't filter in the 100micron or less catagory.

WIX
Part Number: 51515

Style: Spin-On Lube Filter
Service: Lube
Type: Full Flow
Media: Paper

Height: 5.178
Outer Diameter: 3.660
Thread Size: 3/4-16
By-Pass Valve Setting-PSI: 8-11
Anti-Drain Back Valve: Yes
Beta Ratio: 2/20=19/41
Burst Pressure-PSI: 270
Max Flow Rate: 7-9 GPM

Nominal Micro Rating: 19

Gasket Diameter
O.D. I.D. Thk.
2.834 2.462 0.20

 

Does anyone have some real data supporting synthetics having better cleaning oxidents than dyno?

Good question. For engine cleaning Castrol GTX seems like about the best out there, but some people swear by using a full synthetic to flush away the crud. I personally would just use Castrol GTX with an extremely short change cycle, 1000 miles, along with using something like the WIX filter.

 

Long story short....Your Screwed!!!

 

I haven't bought that filter, but how would you be screwed?

Thanks.

 

I haven't bought that filter, but how would you be screwed?

Thanks.

Any internal combustion engine with that amount of Sludge build up is screwed period!......:thumbsdow

 

Maybe so, but the question is will the filter work properly?

 

The BEST way to remove sludge is to remove the head and have it hot tanked. That'll also reveal any camshaft bearing wear in the cylinder head.

If that's uneconomical, or just not possible, then accelerated oil changes will help. Just remember that you won't be able to drain the sludge out completely unless you drop the pan or use a vacuum pump and a vinyl tube in the drain port.

 

If it's not too late (high miles) I would switch to fully synthetic oils (e.g. Valvoline Synpower, Mobil1 Fully Synthetic, Royal Purple) with good filters like OEM/Denso/WIX/Pureone/Mobil1 and follow shortened OCI (2.5k miles tops / 3 months) for a year.

If OP doesn't want to use synthetic (will reveal weak gaskets on high mileage engines) then I would suggest using Castrol GTX (or GTX HM) with same good filters (no FRAM/Bosch/Purolator) shortened OCI (1.5k miles tops / 1.5 months) for a year.

then pull the valve cover and take a look how it improved and if it's ready for something else like Auto-RX treatment or Sea Foam treatment in crankcase. you can pick biggest sludge chunk with a tooth pick or pliers or a shop vacuum out of the cylinder head when you have the valve cover opened.

you can still save it, but you need to cut oil change intervals into half (or more) for some time.

 

Adding to this:

Something I've done in the past when I knew I stirred the pot and had lots of potential debris in circulation, (like cleaning the head of CRUD motor) was to LEAVE the oil pan drain plug out and dump cheap oil all over the head to flush it straight to the oil pan and DIRECTLY into the drain pan! Hint, not into circulation in the oil feeds!

This is a good idea if anyone takes the aggressive approach.


As for that filter fitting I4, I don't answer. Its REAL tight on the V6 1MZ but it fits. Anyone?

 

Thanks for all the tips. I've actually bought a few bottles of Auto-Rx and just did the oil change and first application of Auto-Rx (it also happened to be my first time ever doing an oil change myself

Anyways, I just had an oil change just a little under 500 miles ago and when I drained the oil yesterday, the oil was black.

Talking with the Auto-Rx people, it probably won't get all the sludge out in the 2 clean and rinse cycles but it should help a lot.

I don't want to take too aggressive an approach in removing the sludge since nothing is too wrong with my Camry.

 

Have you ever changed the PCV valve?

 

In short, yes, I changed the PCV valve.

I just started getting more interested in maintaining my car and making it last recently after owning the car for 5 years after buying it used. (I know that's bad, but better late than never, right?)

My first project was to change my spark plugs since I haven't changed them since 2005. While changing my spark plugs, I find out that one of my spark plug wires broke so I had to buy a wireset and bought the PCV valve while I was there and replaced that. These maintenance items were a lot easier and less scary than I imagined them to be! I wished I had gained an interest in this earlier!

When I changed my spark plugs, they were all pretty worn but one of them was covered in black oil. My mechanic friend said that the valve cover gasket probably needed to be replaced so I had him come over to do that (and replace the fuel filter). When he came over and pulled off the valve cover, we saw what he described as the worst case of sludge he had ever seen. Sludge was literally caked everywhere. We took a shop vac and tried to scrape off as much as we could and then replaced the gasket and covered it back up... I wish I took pictures of it.

He recommended doing an engine flush so I did some research and it seems to not be a good idea to break off chunks of sludge so quickly. So I came across Auto-Rx and it sounds like it may do some good but we will see.

The Auto-Rx people recommended looking for an oversized oil filter due to the amount of sludge that may be cleaned out so that's how I came across this post.

I found that the Rav4 filter has the same diameter and is a little bit longer than the one for the Camry. But when I went to O'Reilly's, the guy there talked me out of going with the bigger filter and told me that unless I had work done on the car to improve performance, that it is not a good idea to go bigger. He also pointed me to an engine flush product, which I told him I didn't want to do.

So that's where I am. Just started my first application of Auto-Rx and will try and rack up some mileage on it to make the process go a bit faster. Our car probably has the worst driving style since most of our driving is short runs. I think we only average about 20 miles a day or so.

 

You can always run a bigger filter. More filtered oil available for the engine to use is always better.

 

Last time i was using oversized filter for Winter synthetic run (5months OCI), I was using Motorcraft FL400S filter (for Ford trucks i think, but fits perfectly fine, only gasket is thicker and makes it harder to tighten).

You could also use Purolator Purone PL14477 instead of regular PL14476.

 

As you all read I use the big filter when I stir stuff up. The downside about the big filter is its takes time to fill it. That extra time may equate to time that the reciprocating parts are not getting oil right after start up "IF the filter bleeds Down". Prolly no big deal if its all highway miles like I do 2 25 mile trips everyday, but lets say you start the car 16 times a day to go 10miles. This would likely increase wear if the filter bleads down due to debris holding the one way anti-siphon valve open.

In the case of an engine having LOTS of fine debris thats gets start/stop/start/stop operation, a less risky approach is to use a stock filter and change the filter TWICE while leaving the oil. This make sense to everyone?

Short cycle the filter, but don;t use a cheap filter either.

 

I would use mmo as half a quart along with what ever cleaning oil you choose. You could might also choose pennzoil yellow bottle or the high mileage formula to clean out the engine. Go to bob is the oil guy and read in the oil additives section of the forum for more info of how to help clean up the sludge along with the passenger motor oil forum those guys are pretty knowledgeable about topics like this and can help you make your decision. http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/cms/

 

Are the OEM Toyota oil filters good filters? I was going to go with the Wix filters but saw that I could get the OEM filters for a little $4 each vs $7 for the Wix. What are the major differences, if any? Also, is there any way to tell if the oil filters are in bypass mode and time to change the filter?

 

The filter won't be as hot cuz there's no oil flow. . . Best bet is to cut a couple open and look through the pleats. . . . If the pleats are full, you ran it too long!

 

I would recommend the OEM filter.

Here is someting I found while browsing the BITOG website:

"For those engines with excessive varnish and carbon buildup the engine oil additives of the detergent type may be of benefit. On the other hand you could just use a thin synthetic oil and change it every 200 miles for a while and end up with an even cleaner engine."

I'm thinking about going with a 0-30, even at my mileage, it will flow better when cold.

 

I would recommend the OEM filters too, they are VERY well designed and cheap through online dealers. just bought a case of 10 OEM filters for my 1mz-fe at $40.50 shipped and I already have another case of 10 OEM filters for my 5s-fe which I bought even cheaper at $39.99 shipped.

those prices and toyota parts quality beats the crap out of all the competition where prices starts at like $6-7 and only go up, unless you get it with a DIY oil change deal for free.

listen to guys, you need LONG highway runs for auto-rx to do its job. I actually planned a 800 mile road trip (400 miles a day on highways mostly) with auto-rx in crankcase, so engine got some superb cleaning (now running the rinse phase).

There will not be lots of loose sludge chunk in the cleaning cycle, but i wouldn't go over 2k miles with your engine condition. Myself did only 2,500 miles in cleaning phase (they recommend 3k miles, but that's too much for hot 5s-fe, it kills dino motor oil completely by that time).

Now, once you get done with cleaning phase and you run the rinse phase, do this in 2 steps, it will save you hassle with clogged filter.
do 1 rinse (1,500 miles) on clean oil and filter and then change it out (including filter of course) and do another 1,500 miles.

then pull the valve cover off and take some pics. you will probably be ready for sea foaming once that done

good luck!

 

I would recommend the OEM filters too, they are VERY well designed and cheap through online dealers. just bought a case of 10 OEM filters for my 1mz-fe at $40.50 shipped and I already have another case of 10 OEM filters for my 5s-fe which I bought even cheaper at $39.99 shipped.

Just bought 2 filters at my local dealer for $3.99 each. I called around to ask if any would price match a coupon for $2.99 but they said they could only go down to $3.99. Still, it's almost half the price of the Wix filters... and I got a free can of soda at the dealership :clap: