Here we go! Let me tell you guys right off the bat -- it is challenging trying to take pictures while doing an oil change. I had to wipe down my gloves several dozen times so I wouldn't get too much oil on my smartphone. I must of looked silly wiping down my gloves several times and I hope nobody was watching either. It made a 20 minute oil change into an hour oil change
I took quite a few pictures, but I included the ones I felt served the purpose of this thread. Once again, I wasn't trying to clean sludge or varnish (because I don't have that problem), but did want to see if I could clean out my ticking hydraulic lifters. Verdict: Success. Noise is gone. Chemtool must of dissolved the gunk that was present and suspended it into the oil. Oil got pretty darn dark for the time it was in the crankcase. And to recap for those who just skipped to this portion of the thread: 6 ounces of Chemtool B12 was added into the crankcase for a 4,500 mile OCI on 5w30 Valvoline Nexgen conventional oil. On to the pictures...
Obligatory fill-hole-shot. As you can see from the badly taken picture, it is varnish free and sludge free.
Here we have a trio of shots taken of the oil drain plug. Pretty normal crud on the tip of the oil plug. I was afraid of finding a magnet full of spiky metal shavings, due to the reputation Chemtool has of being too harsh and should only be used to flush engine without a load. Well, looks like all is well. Just comes to show you that the oil did it's job and that Chemtool didn't melt the innards of my engine
Middle picture shows a quick wipe-down and the shot furthest to the right shows it ready to go with it's gasket (dont use crush washer). Shinny!
In this shot you can appreciate the crud I wiped off the oil plug. Nothing out of the ordinary really, but felt it was a good representation of the little gunk I smeared off onto a clean paper towel.
Filter cartridge that was in service was a Purolator L14758. Filter was in for roughly 2 oil changes, or about 9,500 miles (5,000 and 4,500 miles). Some of you will note some perforated paper on some of the end-caps. Some filters have that extra layer of paper, so I peeled it off so I could get a better shot of the paper media.
Close-up of the paper media. Yep, I ripped it while trying to pry the pleats to check for any suspicious debris. There's a shadow that I couldn't avoid, but I found no chunks of anything.
Here's a shot of the used oil. Kinda dark for the oil change interval, but you be the judge.
Close-up of the used oil.
Here I circled what I saw after I poured the used oil out of the plastic drain pan. They weren't metallic (because magnet couldn't pick them up). In my opinion, this is stripped aluminum from the oil plug thread hole. Previous owner cross threaded the plug and I had to fix that when I took over the car around 20,000 miles ago, so this could be residual carnage of that. Not worried, but I wanted to include it here. Or maybe it's crud that got dislodged from the crankcase. Your guess is as good as mine. Worth noting: previous OCI had a couple of these bits.
Here's what is going in: Mag 1 5w20 conventional and a Mahle OX91D filter cartridge. And yes, for the inquiring minds, I have used 5w20 viscosity on this engine before. No harm has come of it. Since this is a city driven car with an average of 10-20 mile trips, 5w20 is perfect even in the sunny weather of southern California. Sometimes I feed it 5w20, sometimes I feed it 5w30 - whichever I have on hand