97 Ram 1500 with major sludge and old oil deposits

[NoMoSmoke]

Trying to find a good process to clean out my engine of old oil sludge and carbon deposits and not harm the stem seals.(250,000 miles) Pulled the valve covers and their totally caked with crud. Engine smokes at start up too. Compression check shows all cyls at 110-120psi(within specs)except #5 which is at 90psi. No ring noise or obvious piston slap. Some small ticking on (passenger side)opposite bank as #5. Very little oil consumption.

Will a strong motor flush be the first step? I've heard a quart of high detergent ATF added to the crankcase will work wonders for breaking down sludge too. I plan to manually clean my V covers first before the the treatment and then cleaning the pan afterward. Is Maxlife 10w-40 a good choice after a treatment? What filter is best? I'll change my PCV too at the same time. I suspect the seals may be bad, but hope things may improve some and the smoke will cease. Could I have better luck with Seafoam, Auto RX or CRC Motor Flush? I need some expert advice on this. Last resort is a complete valve job.

 

[Nick1994]

Don't use flushes or transmission fluid in your engine. The best thing IMO would be to take off the oil pan and make sure the oil pickup screen isn't caked with sludge restricting flow, clean it up underneath and run Pennzoil Yellow Bottle for 500-1000 miles per oil change for 10k miles. Then continue on with 3,000 miles per oil change.

 

[Chris142]

Could the intake gaskets be letting a small amount of coolant into the oil?

 

[Panzerman]

What motor is it? Still with 250,000 miles I would just put a quart of Marvel Mystery oil in it with every oil change and run it. That crud may be holding a lot of oil in and giving it the compression. If you said it was a 2007 with 90,000 I would say worry about trying to clean it, but at 250,000??? How much longer do you think it will go with what I would think was a bad service schedule.

 

[19jacobob93]

Don't do any flushes just yet but here's what I'd do.
Do 2 short runs (1k mi) with cheap dino, then one more with Rislone or MMO which are cleaners that work at a slower pace for about 2k miles. Check under the valve covers again.
After that I'd do a 3-4k run with a decent oil (Maxlife 10w30/40 would be good) and then flush if it looked pretty clean inside.
This is what I did on a family friends 97 Falcon with the old 4.0 I6. It had 430k KM on the odo and he hadn't changed the oil in the 100k+ and 4 years he'd had it! There was no oil on the dipstick and about a litre of black 'oil' in the sump.
What I said above worked well for this car but we used 20w50 Maxlife

 

[BAJA_05]

Is this your first oil change on the truck or your first post on this site? When I bought my Ram in signature back in 2011. I bought it off the original owner who only ran conventional oil he told me. My first oil change I used Rotella T5 10-30 and a Mopar Filter. Changed it after 1000 miles and the filter felt like a lead weight. From there on I have been running synthetics at 4000 mile intervals using Purolator P1s and now a Fram Ultra for the last 8000 miles. Stay away from the engine flushes like mentioned earlier and it would not be a bad idea to do a pan drop like stated earlier also. Good luck and Welcome Aboard!!!

 

[NoMoSmoke]

I agree the service schedule was not perfect. But the 5.2L truck with a 318 V8 spent a lot of time off road hauling heavy loads in the bush of Alaska at -50 (below zero) for two winters (very cold starts)

then driven all the way to the southern tip of Mexico, throughout every state and into the high (very hot and dusty) mountains hauling gear and equipment. Finding good oil, fuel, and parts was difficult for several years. Its been used hard and amazingly still runs well.

Any test data on MMO? Or any other product that is proven to be effective with older worn engines? (200k +)

 

[RISUPERCREWMAN]

Let us know how you make out!

 

[aquariuscsm]

Have you had this truck since new? What oil and mileage had you always used?

 

[Brybo86]

did you take any pictures of the valve covers? Valve cover and cut open oil filter pics = bitog pr0n

 

[4D-56]

I used to have an '89 Astro with the 4.3 V6. It had about 270K on it when I first got it. It had done toms of idling and poor maint sched, was caked under the valve covers. I cleaned them out by hand and added a full Qt of Kreen to 4.5 Qts of Supertec dino 10W40 and just ran it for 3K.

did the same thing on the next change. Nothing but good things happened. Each & every time I used kreen (in the gas also) the van just got better & better. I never even pulled the oil pan. When I sold it, I was running Maxlife 20W50 which it would burn steadily.

When I called Kreen, I spoke to an older chap that came over as being very knowledgeable. He said to not worry at all about the Kreen loosening "chunks" and blocking anything. He said that it does not work that way.

 

[4D-56]

Originally Posted By: Brybo86
did you take any pictures of the valve covers? Valve cover and cut open oil filter pics = bitog pr0n


+1 !!

 

[Kuato]

Those 318s are tough motors.

NO to a flush, a flush in that condition will release chunks that will likely clog passages or kill a bearing or both (hmmm wonder how I know that...)

Agree with cleaning out valve covers and oil pan and following Nick1994's plan. Make sure to change the oil filter each time, as it will be loading up with crud.

 

[Clevy]

If it's running fine as is I suggest cleaning what you can by hand then button it back up and run shortish intervals on conventional oils.
If it's really sludged there has to be a reason such as a coolant leak so I suggest making sure the coolant level isn't dropping.
I had 2 318 trucks over the years. Put 450k on each.

 

[SteveSRT8]

Originally Posted By: stro_cruiser
I used to have an '89 Astro with the 4.3 V6. It had about 270K on it when I first got it. It had done toms of idling and poor maint sched, was caked under the valve covers. I cleaned them out by hand and added a full Qt of Kreen to 4.5 Qts of Supertec dino 10W40 and just ran it for 3K.

did the same thing on the next change. Nothing but good things happened. Each & every time I used kreen (in the gas also) the van just got better & better. I never even pulled the oil pan. When I sold it, I was running Maxlife 20W50 which it would burn steadily.

When I called Kreen, I spoke to an older chap that came over as being very knowledgeable. He said to not worry at all about the Kreen loosening "chunks" and blocking anything. He said that it does not work that way.



Absolutely true. We have been using Kreen for quite a while now and it is a GREAT product.

Safe and highly effective if used correctly...

 

[demarpaint]

I'd clean what I could manually and use something like Kreen, Rislone, or MMO for short intervals. As SteveSRT8 said, "safe and highly effective if used correctly."

 

[barkingspider]

I think cleaning under the valve covers and the oil pan is a very good idea. If there is no coolant leak, then it would run 10w40 (cheap brand or super tech) for 3k mile oil change intervals.

 

[NoMoSmoke]

Been under the weather last two days. So haven't followed up much. But a few of you have mentioned to check coolant levels. Turns out rad was low by 1/2 a gallon. Reservoir was full though??? Don't think its a cracked block, but maybe as Chris 142 thought a bad intake gasket. I'll check it out.

Mean while lots of good advice about NOT using a flush. I'll do the necessary manual cleaning and the "short runs with dino oil" and see how things work out. Still not sure if I should try Rislone or MMO during any runs. Could the low compression on #5 be related to either coolant leak or crud build up? I'll try to get before and after photos of the covers, pan and filter. BTW how do I upload pics?

 

[Clevy]

Originally Posted By: NoMoSmoke
Been under the weather last two days. So haven't followed up much. But a few of you have mentioned to check coolant levels. Turns out rad was low by 1/2 a gallon. Reservoir was full though??? Don't think its a cracked block, but maybe as Chris 142 thought a bad intake gasket. I'll check it out.

Mean while lots of good advice about NOT using a flush. I'll do the necessary manual cleaning and the "short runs with dino oil" and see how things work out. Still not sure if I should try Rislone or MMO during any runs. Could the low compression on #5 be related to either coolant leak or crud build up? I'll try to get before and after photos of the covers, pan and filter. BTW how do I upload pics?


Ring deposits can certainly affect compression. 1/2 gallon is a lot of water. I'm thinking gasket is compromised.
Of all the engine oil additives available the only one I've seen Molekule recommend is rislone so give it a shot. I suggest if you are going to use an oil additive go up a grade to compensate for oil thinning.

 

[NoMoSmoke]

Is there another way to verify a bad intake gasket without taking everything apart first? Any pressure tests? What other possible sources are there of coolant entering the Combustion Chambers? BTW, oil looks dark but not milky and coolant has no oil in it.