Under valve cover pics, 92 Cavalier.

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wtd

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Today I replaced the valve cover gasket on my 92 Cavalier RS with the 2.2L due to an oil leak. Car currently has 230,700 miles on it. I bought it with 76,600 miles on it back in 2006. I've always done an oil change every 5,000 miles. I've used several different oils over the years. Quaker State, Pennzoil, Havoline, Trop Artic,and now Castrol HM. Some of the others were High Mileage oils and I believe they were all synthetic blends.

This is the first time I have had the valve cover off since I have owned the car. A shop had it off when they replaced the head gasket at about 81,000 miles but I never saw it off.

It does have some varnish but nothing that I would consider really bad. I just thought I would let you guys see what it looked like.

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The first 76000 miles from the previous owner might be the key here as to why the varnish. It's not real bad though.
 
My 00 Century looked like that after about 80K miles on a steady diet of dino oil changed every 3K miles. Needless to say I was not impressed with dino oil's ability to keep my engine clean in severe service use.
 
It looks like there are some lighter spot in that varnish, I wonder what it like when you first go it, the oils you use may well be cleaning it up albeit slowly.
I don't see any real issues in that old school engine other than possible slightly sticking rings that you can clean up with a top engine soak.
 
Originally Posted by WobblyElvis
That is more varnish than I would have thought considering the 5,000 mile OCIs. Many short trips?


Same here.
 
For 230k it looks fine. Especially since the first 70k or so is unknown maintenance. You should have seen engines from the 70's. You could scoop sludge from the lifter valleys and valve covers. You could not see the varnish for the sludge.
 
Looks good to me. I'm not sure how clean you expect a 220k mile engine to look. I had a '94 Cavi coupe with the 2.2/TH125 and my god while it was reliable it was SO SLOW!!

Is yours a 5-speed?
 
Not bad, I had a 91 many moons ago. Head gasket let go at about 160k, was a known issue, (not enough meat at the driver side front of the head), easiest head gasket job I ever did.
Gave it to my younger brother, he drove it from high school all the way through college, put about another 60k on it before selling it and buying a new car.
Those were the days of 3k mile oil changes, I used PYB.
 
Originally Posted by WobblyElvis
That is more varnish than I would have thought considering the 5,000 mile OCIs. Many short trips?
At 2½ times the mileage, my Mazda (below) didn't have nearly that much varnish, with mostly 6,000-mile oil changes of conventional 10W-40. It didn't do many short trips.
 
Originally Posted by 14Accent
Looks good to me. I'm not sure how clean you expect a 220k mile engine to look. I had a '94 Cavi coupe with the 2.2/TH125 and my god while it was reliable it was SO SLOW!!

Is yours a 5-speed?


My 302 was spotless
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Originally Posted by WobblyElvis
That is more varnish than I would have thought considering the 5,000 mile OCIs. Many short trips?


Actually not really during my ownership. I retired in August of 2017 but before that, I was driving it about 65 miles a day to work and back pretty much every day. Since retirement there are a lot more short trips and I've only put about 4,000 miles on it in almost a year but I don't think that would have caused that much varnish in a year and a half.

I bought it wrecked and fixed it but the person who owned it prior to the person I bought it from and who owned it when it got wrecked was an older guy in his 70's or 80's. I don't know if he was the original owner but obviously it wasn't driven much with only about 5,500 miles a year until I bought it in 2006.
 
Originally Posted by 14Accent
Looks good to me. I'm not sure how clean you expect a 220k mile engine to look. I had a '94 Cavi coupe with the 2.2/TH125 and my god while it was reliable it was SO SLOW!!

Is yours a 5-speed?

No, this one is an automatic but I do have another 92 Cavalier that has the 2.2L/ 5 speed that my fiancee used to drive but now it just sits because she bought a 94 Cavalier almost five years ago.
 
Originally Posted by TurboLuver
Not bad, I had a 91 many moons ago. Head gasket let go at about 160k, was a known issue, (not enough meat at the driver side front of the head), easiest head gasket job I ever did.
Gave it to my younger brother, he drove it from high school all the way through college, put about another 60k on it before selling it and buying a new car.
Those were the days of 3k mile oil changes, I used PYB.


Every early 2.2L that I have had or people I knew that had them had to have the head gasket replaced, a lot of time at an early mileage. Mine have always leaked in the lower right corner if you are looking at the engine from the front of the car.
 
Originally Posted by Trav
It looks like there are some lighter spot in that varnish, I wonder what it like when you first go it, the oils you use may well be cleaning it up albeit slowly.
I don't see any real issues in that old school engine other than possible slightly sticking rings that you can clean up with a top engine soak.

I have no idea what it would have looked like when I first got it. It only averaged about 5,500 miles a year up until I bought it and who knows what oil was used.

It doesn't really burn oil so I don't know about the ring condition but it does have a sound when the engine is under load that sounds like an exhaust leak but it's not that. I had the exhaust manifold off of it last year to see if the gasket was bad or the manifold was cracked but didn't find anything. The gasket from the manifold to the exhaust pipe was also replaced. When you rev the engine up in park it almost sounds like it's coming from where the engine and transmission meet. It's gotten louder since last year so I'm sure something will give it up before long.
 
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