Sludge found under valve covers, eeek!

[Jeff Discos]

So after finally, yes finally, getting to the valve cover gasker job I was hoping to do last weekend, I found a not-so-nice surprise under the valve covers. I thought I had found the hiding spot for a sludge monster...

I cleaned the valve cover interior very well, took off the baffle thingy on the inside of the valve cover and cleaned almost every last bit of sludge, grease, and dirt from the valve cover. I was very afraid of attempting to clean the top of the cylinder head for fear of loosening up some of the slime in large chunks and blocking any necessary oil passageways. The sludge on the valve cover was extremely thick, and seemed very very encrusted with 'dirt'. After finding this, I didn't want to damage my engine (if it had been running great this way for a long time, I didn't want to mess something up).

Did I do the right thing? Is there any possibility that putting some of the cleaner stuff such as seafoam or other engine cleaner fluids in with the oil will help to combat this buildup? I used seafoam in my last oil change. The current oil doesn't have any cleaner in it, just oil and Lucas oil stabilizer. I have BG 44K on order, and something else that was recommended to put in the crank that would help clean the interior engine surfaces.

Any input is appreciated.

 

[Sergei]

What a good clean intake you got Cheers on that!

Dont worry, you did it all right. You also can ubolt rocker shaft and clean it throughly. Specially under rockers (you can push them to side - they are kept in place by those springs on shaft) - you wont believe lovely film of laquer that is under them and preventing them from rocking freely. Those four bolts are only thing that keeping rocker shaft in place.
But mind position if you do that - they are side oriented.
You also can clean pushrods, but be very carefull when putting them back - they can slide in and almost fall in engine block (and then its pain to get them back. And yes - i lost two of them and then had lovely time fishing them out ). Do them one by one , that way you wont mess up ordering (they are allegedly different, though mine were looking all the same).
You can also wipe insides of head cover without unbolting it, after you take rocker shaft off.
Easiest solution is to do it before oil change, then you can use one of motorflush liquids are solvent to clean up grime/gunk without much worries.

And when you putting things back - prelube them with lucas Regular oil will be all other the place, but lucas will be on parts and you will notice how differently your truck sounds after all that

PS: yours looking pretty clean in comparition to what mine looked like I spent about 4-5 hours cleaning on each side. But i did get them clean to shiny metal.

 

[discomike]

Hey Jeff,
Welcome to the inner workings of a Rover.
Just kidding. So you have your hands full of gunk, not a big deal to fix. I would suggest that yoi think seriously at multiple engine flushes over the next few thousand miles. There are a number of engine flushes out there, easy to use and safe. You might even want to look at using a couple of qts. of ATF to get this process started. It may take 3 or 4 trys to get the majority of the sludge out. Your only concern would be plugging up the pick up tube in the pan.
If you still have my number call me and we can talk it out.
Good luck,
Mike J.