While changing the valve cover gaskets I noticed there is an aweful lot of oil sludge all over the springs and rockers. This weekend I'm changing the carb and intake manifold and I was wondering if I should try and clean the sludge out while I'm at it, if so should I pull the cylinder heads off to do so?

 

Scoop out what you can with a spoon or something. MAKE ABSOLUTELY DOUBLE DAMN SURE the drainback holes are clear. Run a quart of automatic trand fluid in your oil. Change it after about 500 miles, or sooner if the oil starts getting REAL thick. Then every however often after that until the oil quits getting that way.

Done.

 

Great thank you! Could you maybe elaborate a little on the drainback holes? I'm not sure where that is

 

wipe off what you can, making sure to not plug the pushrod holes or leave any loose chunks..

then start changing the oil and running a good quality oil... the motor will clean itself up before too long..

 

There's one at each end, in mirror image spots... near the corner, on the intake side (toward the center of the engine)

Rod em out with coat hanger wire

Don't forget about the ATF, it WORKS... about 10 times as fast at cleaning that stuff up, as any kind of oil.

One quart when you change the oil.

 

Thanks guys thats exaxtly what i needed to know, do you think the sludge is hindering my performance? I figure its gotta be

 

Prolly not, much anyway... not your car's, either

 

Yes it is hindering your performance, And the others are right that transmission fluid will clean it up to a point, The problem with sludge in your engine, once you clean it up you may end up burning more oil as the sludge usually is hiding bad seals, I would suggest removing your heads clean them that way, While your at it go ahead and replace your valve seals. It's better to do the job right the first time. Plus you'll get a chance to see what condition your cylinders and pistons are in.

 

the problem with cleaning the sludge up too fast in an engine is that it has to go somewhere, and that somewhere will invariably be the oil pickup in the pan... once that gets clogged, it's game over for the engine.
unless you are planning to pull the oil pan to clean it out, you're better off just running good oil and changing it more often so that you can get all the bad stuff out of the engine over a period of several thousand miles..

 

That's why this instruction is included.

It's because, the oil that it starts out with, prolly won't make it even 500 miles before it's totally loaded up with gunk.

Works fine, AS LONG AS YOU FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTIONS.