Sludge remedies

Bijan

Bijan

New member
Hello all. Recently I was changing my PCV valve and noticed how much gunk or sludge was in my valve covers.

I did some searching only to find people recommend Seafoam both in the intake, and the crank case.... and switching to synthetic oil.

So I just want to double check, it's safe to pour 1 oz of SeaFoam per quart of oil in the crank case? So 5.5 oz of seafoam at 1 time... drive around aggressively or normally?

Then change oil after how many miles? 100?

I'm using conventional 5w-30 right now. 228k miles. Supercharged less than 5k miles ago. I want to get rid of this sludge!

It's totally safe to run seafoam, then switch to synthetic correct? Just DON'T GO BACK to conventional correct?
 
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Sounds way scientific to me. I've always poured about a half a cap in the oil, about 50-100 miles before an oil change in the past
 
Everybody has their opinion on SeaFoam, but if it was my 4Runner that had some engine sludge, I would NOT use it in the oil. You want to remove the sludge very slowly not quickly, which will cause problems.

I highly recommend that you switch to a good 5w-30 synthetic oil, preferably one that has an extended performance option like Mobil1, which has more detergents and acid neutralizing chemistry. Another alternative would be to use a high-detergent diesel-oriented oil for a few oil changes like Shell Rotella -then switch to a normal gas-engine synthetic. They will all work, and no brand is better than any other, just choose whatever synthetic you like, make sure you drive the vehicle up to full operating temperature (5-10 miles at a minimum) at least once a week if you make a lot of short trips or live in a cold climate. It will take time but you can remove some/most of it out this way, just figure it will take at least a few oil changes before you can see much progress. This is the only SAFE way to do it, short of taking the engine apart. Good luck!
 
Nothing will remove it. Its there forever unless you clean it out which can cause more issues since you break it loose. Sucks when you find out your rig has not had regular oil changes.
 
IsaiahC said:
Could put some ATF in the oil for 100 miles. 1 qt or until high level mark
Click to expand...

Guy I know that runs a performance shop for turbo cars used to run auto trans fluid for a little before tearing down and rebuilding motors. Not sure if he still does that but man it worked pretty good to clean up the motor.
 
I got the Sludge call 4k miles ago during a valve cover change. It was bad.

Got some good advice here and I decided to take it slow and easy, Change the oil every 2K , sticking with conventional for now, may switch to synthetic down the line. It ran fine before this and still is running fine, take it on 100 mile shore runs 2 or 3 time a month. I changed the PCV as well and man that simple little part made a difference immediately. The engine had a wining sound on start up right after the VC change and I asked the dealer about changing that and they blew me off, saying that won't fix anything, I should expect the worse.
So I changed it , popped a new OEM one in and the wining went away immediately and it runs fine. Obviously a piece could break off and then a problem would ensue which is why slow and easy is what I am doing. I think the sludge is baked right on as the oil is clean when I change it. Not sure if that is good or bad. Its running, I love the truck, so going to drive it till something happens. Get a burning oil smell randomly during idle when I first take it out, but it goes away and its not burning or leaking any oil. I just live with that for now, not sure what that about,

One owner low mileage 78K 02 that obviously did not have oil changed enough or at all. Bought it at a Toyota Dealer...................

heres the post I started
http://www.toyota-4runner.org/3rd-gen-t4rs/218803-valve-coverjob-sludge-call.html
 
If it's a lot, don't mess with it, it can clog your oil pump. Switch to a quality synthetic oil and just let that slowly clean it with every oil change.
 
One trick that came to mine once was pour a QT of Kerosene into the oil and it would clean up sludge like a champ used do it with older model camry but get ready u will flip at the sight of crap that comes out when u drain the oil... Only run the engine for 20 min
 
If the sludge is bad I say switch to a high end synthetic, like mobil 1 or better, do frequent oil changes, like every 2000 miles and add a little marvel mystery oil, like half what the bottle says to and slowly ramp up a little more every oil change till you're using a whole quart. Also make sure you're running a good extened oil filter like a pl20195 to catch all the gack coming loose. I like MMO becasue it's not as hard on things as ATF but ATF also works well I have been told. In this situation DO NOT use seafoam seafoam is a solvent where as ATF and MMO are detergents, you want to slowly brake down and clean off the deposits not slough large chunks that will plug your galleys and cause more issues.

Your next best option is engine replacement, that was our most frequent solution for sludge when I worked for Toyota, granted most of that was warranty work.

Use good oil and make sure that PCV works!
 
I'd try the synthetic diesel Rotella T-6 route at first...see if it dissolves more sludge at oil change time.
BTW, if you look at the MMO MSDS, you'll see that it's got a lot of solvent in it.
 
Without spilling too much into here let me say that you can see in one of my earlier posts I had great luck with using a detergent heavy oil like pennzoil ultra platinum. Not saying that other oils won't work. Check out my thread if it means anything to ya. Best of luck cleaning her out. That sludge holds heat, not best situation especially with your supercharger. Feel free to let me know if I can help out any further: I went through the same nightmare.
 
The engine runs fine right? Just change the oil. The sludge that's there won't hurt it and there's better things to worry about. The Rotella is a good option.
 
Bash me but this is what rotella t6 every 5k, 'motor medic motor flush' every oc for 5 mins and seafoam when i remembered in the last 300 miles before oc did for my valve train, just changed the leaking vc covers last week.

Not sure it was an "aggressive" cleanout but it is Clean. This cleanout occurred over 50,000 miles not overnight. Purring like a kitten at 277k. What a shame....
 

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Counterpoint08 said:
Everybody has their opinion on SeaFoam, but if it was my 4Runner that had some engine sludge, I would NOT use it in the oil. You want to remove the sludge very slowly not quickly, which will cause problems.

I highly recommend that you switch to a good 5w-30 synthetic oil, preferably one that has an extended performance option like Mobil1, which has more detergents and acid neutralizing chemistry. Another alternative would be to use a high-detergent diesel-oriented oil for a few oil changes like Shell Rotella -then switch to a normal gas-engine synthetic. They will all work, and no brand is better than any other, just choose whatever synthetic you like, make sure you drive the vehicle up to full operating temperature (5-10 miles at a minimum) at least once a week if you make a lot of short trips or live in a cold climate. It will take time but you can remove some/most of it out this way, just figure it will take at least a few oil changes before you can see much progress. This is the only SAFE way to do it, short of taking the engine apart. Good luck!
Click to expand...
This.

I personally use Mobile 1 High Mileage Synthetic in 10w30. It has one of the best cleaning packages of all the oils.

Look around bobistheoilguy.com for more info.
 
etc. said:
This.

I personally use Mobile 1 High Mileage Synthetic in 10w30. It has one of the best cleaning packages of all the oils.

Look around bobistheoilguy.com for more info.
Click to expand...

Do you use a Mobil 1 or Toyota filter?
 
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