My engine started to tick loudly. It comes loudly from the upper engine. Sounds alot like the valve train. So I took off the valve covers and the entire upper portion of the heads is just covered in THICK black sludge.

I recently removed the valve covers a few months ago and it was clean as a whistle. The funny thing is I have only ever run Synthetic in my motor. Never conventional.

At first I thought it may be a bad head gasket, but then the head gasket would leak water through the combustion chamber and not the crankcase.

Then I thought maybe the intake manifold gasket failed. But then realized the oil would not be black but milky and the oil would have been super over serviced on the dipstick.

So I do not know what the heck happened. I hadn't changed the oil in 4k miles. It is synthetic so It should be good until 5-7K.

So what I did was, changed the oil, ran it for 30 minutes, changed the oil again.

The ticking still there... hmm

 

W...T....F...?
What would that black sludge be? You're sure you didn't use any additives over the time? I'm guessing some of that sludge clogged up a lifter oil passage or something

Massive ring blowby contaminating the oil perhaps?
Well, run it with the valve covers off and see what's doing the ticking. See if all rockers are moving the same, or if some are screwy...

 

Every time I've had an engine where the oil gets sludge like, or dirty within a day, even having sludge drain from the pan with the oil, the intake gasket has burned through to the exhaust crossover or EGR ports. IOW, the exhaust is open to the inside of the engine where only oil should be.

Two vehicles like this had the EGR passages with quite a bit of oil in them. Kinda funny the first time I saw it. LIfted the intake manifold (tipping it forward) and oil poured out of the EGR ports and down the runners and dripped all over the engine.

RBob.

 

Well, I am going to add a quart of ATF in there and run it for a few days.

If the ticking is still there, I will put an 1/8th turn on each rocker.

I did not use any additives at all. It is so weird.

If the oil gunks up again, I will change the intake manifold gasket and see wtf is going on, on that end.

 

did you use pennzoill or quaker state? Parafin oils do generally sludge up.

 

The sludging is due to the oil "cooking" usually due to low coolant temps. Have you removed your thermostat or running a colder stat? What is your coolant temp running?

 

How in the world could too low of a coolant temp cause the oil to cook? That makes no sense to me.

 

If the coolant is flowing too fast through the block, It doesn't have time to remove heat from the cylinder. Coolant temp is directly related to the amount of BTU's removed. The lower the coolant temp, the less heat (BTU transfer) removed. Thus, the heat must go somewhere. Oil actually does 2/3rds of engine cooling. Without the heat being removed by the coolant the heat transfers to the metal components of the engine. This in turn causes the oil temp to rise, meaning the oil now is going across hotter parts that designed. In essence, cooking, the oil just like in the frying pan.

The coolant doesn't cool the "engine". The coolant only goes around the cyinders so it's only purpose is controling cylinder temp, not the engine itself.

 

I only use Mobil 1 and I run at 180* temps.

 

mobil one is a quality oil, do you use slick50 or any other product containing teflon, and what kinda oil filter do you use, is it a fram?

 

I use no additives and an AC Delco filter. What would a filter have anything to do with sludge?

 

that sucks.... i only use Quakerstate peak performance oil and fram filters and my engines are so clean inside, not one bit of sludge at all. when i 1st saw your post i was gonna say your using bad oil but thats not the case, if oil was getting into your EGR passage you`d be smoking blue like mad.... my only guess is you don`t change your oil enough... 3 months OR 3000 miles... i change my oil every 3000 KM. and never had a problem with sludge... well the oil in my GTA still looks new and it`s a month and a 1/2 old.

 

You do not need to change your oil every 3000 miles with synthetic oil. That 3000 stuff is just a jiffy lube slogan to rip you off. I always change around 5000 miles and the oil is always fine. For some reason this time it was not.

A quart of tranny fluid in the oil and some readjusting of the valve train should hopefully do it. We shall see.

 

of you never had this problem b4 maybe it is that EGR thing

 

I do not even have EGR.

 

While the valve cover is off shine a light through the head openings into the lifter valley. Check for a dry'ish carbon like look to that area. Depending upon how large a leak it is it can look like the inside of an exhaust pipe, to just looking a little dirty..

Then while the valve cover is still off run the engine and listen for the ticking. If it is coming from the lifter valley. . .

RBob.

 

PCV installed and operating?

 

I would imagine my new PCV valve was working. Even so, on the passenger side I have a regular breather that would vent the crankcase even if the pcv wasn't.

I will try the valve cover inspection.

 

Even though you don't have an EGR valve, your heads still have the exhaust passages designed to route exhaust under the carbed intake manifold. That design has been around since the first SBC.

 

I think that you're blowing smoke. I think that a water pump in a small block chevy could NEVER pump the water so fast that it would fail to cool the engine. Thermo dynamics is not my specialty, common sense tells me that you're pullin' pretty hard on the pipe, and that this part of what you are saying does not hold water.

 

Do you do a lot of short trip driving? If the engine never gets up to temperature, the PCV system will never have a chance to do its thing.

 

exhaust leaking into the motor is pretty much the only thing that makes sense.
it wouldn't necessarily smoke out the tail pipes if the exhaust ports on the intake gasket are turning loose.
try this, make sure the oil cap & dip stick are on/in all the way, plug the breather tube, pull the PCV valve & start the motor. have some buddies put their foot over the tail pipes to restrict the exhaust flow some & cover the PCV hole with your finger & give it a quick rev.a good motor doesn't build much crank case pressure like this. if it builds very much pressure or the air coming out feels hotter than it should with the motor cold, the intake is a
good place to start at.

 

My heads have no EGR ports on the intake. I simply do not convey how this could affect the oil.

The engine is clean now. I drained the oil, filled the entire engine with diesel fuel, all the way up the valve covers. Unplugged the coil wire, and cranked the motor for three 20 second intrevals. Then used an oil primer and primed the diesel.

I drained the diesel and then added oil, primed the oil and the engine is back to the way it used to be (clean as a whistle).

The ticking is still there. Tonight I will give each rocker arm an eighth of a turn, if that doesnt work, an eigth more. If that doesn't work. I will take the lifters, rockers and rods out and to a more through inspection. Perhaps I bent a push rod.

 

Check for bent pushrods before you start it up again.

 

In addition, by conservation of mass and energy....


The water may be moving faster, but at the same time it will cycle through more times. It is a closed system.

 

You can overcool a sbc, and cause some problems, especially if it is a FI car. I have also seen cars overheat due to a lack of thermostat. Absolutely no restriction. When the T stat is installed, it doesnt overheat. Its interesting. The sludging thing is sort of coolant related. When you start a car, and drive it across town and shut it off, but never get it on the highway and run it for 15 or 20 minutes, an interesting thing happens. The moisture trapped inside the crankcase does not have the time to be evaporated. This moisture will cause oil to sludge in the crankcase. This can occur to synthetic oil too. Its not being cooked by the cold coolant though.

 

Change the oil more often, if you want to keep the car running smoothly for a long time. " Mine every 1500 miles, but that me ".I agree with the comment on the Jiffy lube thing. It is recommended that you change your oil based on an OIL PRESSURE GAUGE reading. As conditions change per driver. I also think you need to change your intake manifold gasket. As the man said, "just because you anit got an ERG doesn’t mean the car wasn't made for one. Better get this problem solved before driving it much more, sludge and a ticking valve train in the upper part of the engine means heat and lots of it. This could get real expensive real quick. Umm.... about that coolant doesn't cool statement. For the record:Oil reduces friction hence diminishing the generation of heat. Coolant definitely cools an engine it just doesn’t cool it indefinitely.coolant dosent cool......

 

i knew you said you had no EGR valve, but i was thinking you had iron L98 heads.
i guess i should have looked at your sig, Aluminum L98 Heads, no exhaust ports in the heads
if you ever figure out what casued the problem. be sure to post it up.
good luck with it.

 

Hmm, a lot of good info here.
I am still in the school of thought that a car without a t-stat can't overheat, but that's not the topic here, so I don't want to argue. I do agree with other things ljnowell said, such as the short trips and no time for the oil to heat up and get rid of the moisture. Do you do much short trips?
Either way, lets hope you just bent a cheapie pushrod, and not something worse
I see you have 1.6 rockers... Did you elongate the pushrod slots in the head? (Those heads use slots right?) I elongated mine with a file, and after a while the pushrods wore a funny groove in there, and would slip into the groove and break. I had to drill out the slots and get SA rockers. I hope you don't have that problem, but since it's so recent to me, and near and dear to my heart I thought i'd mention it.

 

After more inspection I noticed a rocker super loose. Sloppy as hell. I took the pushrod out and rolled it on a flat surface and appears to not be bent. I have screw in studs and noticed that did not back out. I set the zero lash and 1/4 turned it and started it again. The noise was better. Not normal. But better.

I may change the intake manifold gasket. I always used the felpro blue ones I think I may use he cloth type ones now.

What I will do is take out all the rods and roll them. I will probably use get new ones and reset the lash on all rockers.

 

I too am guilty of not noticing you are running the aluminum L98 heads. No exhaust near the intake manifold or gasket.

If the push rods are OK I wouldn't get a new set just to have new ones. The stock alum L98 head guide plates are soft. Need to run either SA rockers or change out to hardened plates. Otherwise the push rods cut the plates and the valve train gets out of wack.

Have you tried running the engine with the valve cover off to note where the ticking is coming from?

RBob.

 

I would reccomend Fel Pro's #1205. Summit Racing has it for $14.95.