Solvent in oil, sludge blockage, Kaboom?

[subaru2002]

SO, I've got an H4 in my car and the engine seized after 24 miles on a headgasket job with new oil and filter. Got a re-manufactured engine and sent my long block back to the guy I got the reman engine from. He tore the old engine apart and said the oiling system was clogged due to some sort of solvent that was in the engine. Said the whole short block is toast (ie, melted pistons, bearing races, etc). My question is, can a solvent (engine degreaser) cause a blockage in the oiling system? If so, how? If anything it seems like it would break down the viscosity and you'd end up toasting the engine because of too thin oil. Or does degreaser end up thickening the oil? I tried to search for this scenario online and on here but was coming up empty handed. I'm pretty sure I lack the right vocabulary to know what to search for though so that doesn't surprise me. Any help would be much appreciated!

 

[tommygunn]

If the engine is full of sludge and if someone introduced a powerful solvent in the engine, its likely it could break free the sludge. This debris could then clog the oil pickup screen or other areas of the engine and cause engine starvation.

But for what its worth it would have to be a conceited effort (putting a quart of engine flush in, or diesel, or something into the crankcase) and the engine would have to have sludging inside it (to break free and plug up the engine).

That being said, just sludge could plug it up too, and contaminants in the oil could easily cause a situation necessary to cause such a thing.

 

[dave1251]

This is the reason why many members on here do not recommend the solvent flush method.

 

[Gene K]

Hypothetical situation: Sludge forms because of coolant in oil (head gasket could have been leaking long time). Solvent introduced at time of head gasket change which partially dissolves the sludge which then plugs the oil pump pickup and boom!

 

[bluesubie]

Originally Posted By: dave1251
This is the reason why many members on here do not recommend the solvent flush method.

Oddly enough, SoA has a TSB that recommends their own solvent flush when a screen is clogged blocking oil flow to the turbo.

http://www.scoobymods.com/showthread.php/tsb-02-110-10-engine-13825.html?p=111661

-Dennis

 

[SteveSRT8]

Yeah, those hundreds of damaged engines we hear about because of solvent flushes! Well, maybe one...

Solvent dissolves sludge. Doesn't plug up anything.

SoA has a TSB out. Does that tell any of us anything?

 

[oggb]

Originally Posted By: bluesubie
Originally Posted By: dave1251
This is the reason why many members on here do not recommend the solvent flush method.

Oddly enough, SoA has a TSB that recommends their own solvent flush when a screen is clogged blocking oil flow to the turbo.

http://www.scoobymods.com/showthread.php/tsb-02-110-10-engine-13825.html?p=111661

-Dennis


Never understood why they wouldn't just remove the screen entirely... It doesn't serve any super necessary purpose...

 

[subaru2002]

Yeah, the other option for the toasted engine is blasting beads (silica or glass) left in the head after being machined. I took the oil filter off and cut it open to find it quite clogged with debris. Would the Napa Gold filter have a bypass to prevent such fatal cloggings or would it just plug up completely?

 

[mechtech2]

I'd like to see what actually was in there.
Like others have mentioned, powerful solvent could break away large chunks of sludge, and mess hings up. And of course coolant in the oil is no good.
Solvent in itself does not plug things up. It is very thin and is a very poor lubricant -this of course can seize up an engine.

 

[artificialist]

I witnessed this happen to someone with an abused Toyota RAV4.

This is why the only means of cleaning sludge I recommend is to do a few short OCIs while using high mileage oil.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Yeah, those hundreds of damaged engines we hear about because of solvent flushes! Well, maybe one...

Solvent dissolves sludge. Doesn't plug up anything.

SoA has a TSB out. Does that tell any of us anything?


Not really. It would depend on the amount of gunk in the engine would it not?

 

[SteveSRT8]

Actually it would. But my comment was directed at everyone knocking "solvent flushes" as though they were a direct ticket to engine destruction.

Simply not true.

 

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: subaru2002
Yeah, the other option for the toasted engine is blasting beads (silica or glass) left in the head after being machined. I took the oil filter off and cut it open to find it quite clogged with debris. Would the Napa Gold filter have a bypass to prevent such fatal cloggings or would it just plug up completely?


I think this is your answer.
Debris were left in the heads, and they quickly loaded the filter to the point that it was in bypass, leaving the remaing debris to wreck havoc in the engine, possibly plugging the oil ways and the pickup screen.
The cost of the repairs should be on the machine shop and the mechanic, IMHO.

 

[Stephen_G]

The only way i would use engine flush is thusly:

1: Warm up the engine to operating temprature

2: Remove old oil filter after shutting off engine, and install an oversized one for that vehicle, for example if a car takes a FL400S use a FL1A (for motorcraft)

3: Put the flush in at the correct ratio for the vehicle

4: Idle it through for the time on the bottle

5: Drain the oil, drop the pan, and clean out the oil pickup screen, replacing the gasket. Also, repalce the oil pump if the vehicle is older while you have it that accessable.

6: Refill with decent oil, and run a new oversized filter. 2000 mi later, change the oil and run your normal filter.

That being said, i do not plan to do a flush on the 2003 sable, i do plan to drop the pan and replace it with one that has a normal oil plug on it, not the twist off one i have that is oversized. I might replace the oil pump at the same time since it is accessable.

 

[dave1251]

Originally Posted By: SteveSRT8
Actually it would. But my comment was directed at everyone knocking "solvent flushes" as though they were a direct ticket to engine destruction.

Simply not true.


I disagree/agree, it would depend on the process on how the engine was flushed and how much sludge is in the engine. For instance you got a engine that is full of sludge and then you decide to put in a nice product that dislodges the sludge not dissolves, instead of immediately changing the oil the driver decides to go a nice 2 hour highway drive. What happens next is not good.

 

[Garak]

Originally Posted By: dave1251
I disagree/agree, it would depend on the process on how the engine was flushed and how much sludge is in the engine.


Absolutely. Flushing a brand new engine or a very clean one with just about any product shouldn't create a blockage problem. It's when the engine is in terrible condition, unknown condition, and/or instructions are totally ignored that one is tempting fate.

I used a couple of the cheapo solvent flushes on my old F-150 before the rebuild. It didn't cause a problem, but I had some things in my favour. I did two years of short oil changes intervals with HDEO in the summer and MaxLife in the winter. I also new I was going to rebuild it, used the flushes shortly before the rebuild, and that if I "blew it up," it wouldn't matter much anyhow.

The rebuilder was very appreciative, actually. He said he's never seen an engine so clean inside that you could eat off the oil pan while the outside was a greasy mess (due to leaks), with such a messed up previous rebuild (oil galleries not cleaned, rings in upside down, and other similar nonsense).

 

[A_Harman]

Originally Posted By: subaru2002
Yeah, the other option for the toasted engine is blasting beads (silica or glass) left in the head after being machined. I took the oil filter off and cut it open to find it quite clogged with debris. Would the Napa Gold filter have a bypass to prevent such fatal cloggings or would it just plug up completely?


The bypass valve would be in the oil filter base on the engine.

 

[Moab]

Originally Posted By: subaru2002
SO, I've got an H4 in my car and the engine seized after 24 miles on a headgasket job with new oil and filter. Got a re-manufactured engine and sent my long block back to the guy I got the reman engine from. He tore the old engine apart and said the oiling system was clogged due to some sort of solvent that was in the engine. Said the whole short block is toast (ie, melted pistons, bearing races, etc). My question is, can a solvent (engine degreaser) cause a blockage in the oiling system? If so, how? If anything it seems like it would break down the viscosity and you'd end up toasting the engine because of too thin oil. Or does degreaser end up thickening the oil? I tried to search for this scenario online and on here but was coming up empty handed. I'm pretty sure I lack the right vocabulary to know what to search for though so that doesn't surprise me. Any help would be much appreciated!


A car that is known to have problems are Saab 9-5's from 1999-2003 with the four cylinder turbo charged engine when using conventional motor oil. They had a pcv crankcase ventilation design issue on the four cylinder engine which was later redesigned due to a high number of engine failures caused by engine oil sludge forming on the oil pan's pickup screen. Once the pickup screen plugged up enough the engine would blow. Saab redesigned the pcv system on these cars and recommended using a specific Euro blend full synthetic motor oil in these engines which solved the problem(cleaning the oil pan pickup screen is recommended also by actually taking the oil pan off the engine and thoroughly cleaning it). The engines in these car are known to go over 300,000 miles when properly maintained, the pcv problem is fixed on the car, the pickup screen is cleaned and the right full synthetic motor oil is used. I had 2000 Saab that I fixed and sold, so I know about these cars. The engine was good on the one I had, but the car had many other problems when I bought it.