kuseetha

Dear friends,

I took off the valve covers to fix the leaking gaskets and my god the amount of sludge it has.

One image shows the oil hole which I cleared on one side and the other shows the uncleared. Completely clogged!!

Carefully used a flat screw driver to scrape those off. I can just imagine how it would look under the inlet manifold!

Are there any other oil drain holes apart from those two at either end?

oldcutlass

No other drain holes. Were there any plastic chunks blocking the holes? Those would be the remnants of your valve guide seals. Believe it or not thats not that bad, seen a lot worse. You can block off the return holes and clean that up with some naptha small scrapers/screwdrivers, and rags. Just keep the stuff from getting out of the heads. It will look similar under the manifold.

kuseetha

Glad to hear from you Eric.

Collected all the gunk to an empty beer can. Gotta check them to find plastic bits.

Those holes seem horizontal to me. That means I can easily cover those two, loosen the rockers to close the valves and spray some de-greaser.

Inlet manifold has to come off then

oldcutlass

I would not worry about the intake manifold area unless your planning work in there. A few oil changes will work wonders now that the head drains are cleaned up.

blakes7

And people think frequent oil changes are a waste of money...

TripDeuces

The good news is it's not completely baked on. That is typical for short drives where the water vapor condensation hasn't been burned off and you end up with that gray pasty stuff. I've read where it takes roughly 100 miles of normal driving to burn the water vapor off. Longer drives help and getting the engine up to operating temps for a longer period of time does too.
What temp thermostat are you using?
You could clean it out manually like you're doing or use any of the oil additives that clean things up like Risolone, etc. I've also seen a quart of kerosene added to the engine oil do wonders. Just let it idle for half an hour and drain and refill with a fresh oil filter. Of course all that gunk is going to end up in the oil pan so doing several oil changes might be in order.

kuseetha

No idea what the thermostat is. I read somewhere that 180 degrees is the one to use.

I rescued this engine and trans from a neglected hearse. It had only 20k miles on the odometer but maintenance is highly doubtful.

I drained engine oil that was in terrible state, changed ATF (Castrol Dex II) and put cheap engine oil SAE40 and new filter only to start the engine. Oil pressure was steady 50 PSI.

This is the video of the idling engine.


After this engine start, I drained both engine oil and ATF since the engine is going to be removed from chassis for a swap. That drain took a lot of gunk since it was totally black after such a short run.

I noticed a sound like a lifter noise in the above video. Can someone confirm it?

If that's the case, then I gotta have the inlet manifold to be removed and cleaned while attending the faulty lifter.

Another question is this: I have not seen the inlet manifold gasket yet but I read that there are two types. One piece (turkey tray type) and two piece (without the tray).

What is the advantage of having this turkey tray type to the other?

oldcutlass

The reason for the 2 different style gaskets is that the 2 piece use a tray mounted in the lifter galley. The turkey tray is used when there is no tray mounted.

kuseetha

Oh I see. In that case, I would know only when I open it.

Did anyone hear a lifter noise in the video?

oldcutlass

You may have gotten a bit of crud in the lifters. I would add a qt of Rislone engine treatment or Marvel Mystery oil with 4 qts of fresh oil and run it a couple of 100 miles and see if it clears.

olds 307 and 403

Also what year engine and trans? 72 and older used a different gasket due to a smaller heat riser center port than 73 and later heads. Also 260's and 85 to 90 307's used different gaskets as well.

BillK

Eric,
Can you show me an example of this ? Maybe a picture ?

oldcutlass

Sorry brain fart, had 330 on the brain from another thread.

kuseetha

This is a 1987 model.

cjsdad

This is what the lifter valley tray looks like in a '67 330. Before and after cleaning. I have no idea what years and engine sizes have this tray. Maybe Joe can enlighten us about that. Best i can figure, it is there to keep the heat from the exhaust crossover from cooking the oil in the lifter gallery. The "turkey tray" gasket does the same thing.

Before,



After,

Sugar Bear

Consider doing a compression or better yet leak down test before removing the engine to see if it has clogged or damaged piston rings. If you remove the engine remove the oil pan for a thorough cleaning of the pan and oil pump pick up. If compression or leak down shows problems the rings may just be clogged and can be cleaned up with solvents.

Good luck and keep us posted!!!

kuseetha

Current plan is to clean only under the valve covers, start engine and change oil a few times. Should do a compression test at that time. Looks like its a good idea to remove the sump and clean the pan while the engine is out of the chassis.

Thank you for all the help. Will keep the results posted.

olds 307 and 403

If you go that far, replace the factory nylon timing gear that likes to self destruct.

kuseetha

Can the factory timing gear go in 20500 miles?

My plan was to run it and service a few times, identify all the things it need and then get down all the parts it at once. There are no parts for these cars here in Sri Lanka Read that 307 is a non-interference engine

oldcutlass

The plastic covering can/will deteriorate over time. Its always a good idea to change the stock timing set at some point just for piece of mind. In addition if you get it done early on you circumvent having all those bits of plastic getting caught in your oil pump pickup screen.