Discovered oil in the valley.

This afternoon, I pulled the lower intake manifold to inspect the knock sensors and harness. I was surprised to find oil and some water sitting in the valley. I can see how the water may have entered when the engine and the heater hoses were released. Or it may have been raining the day the engine was removed from the donor car.

Possibly the oil could have entered the valley some years ago from a leaking valve cover and it has been sitting there for all these years. I'm stumped on this one.

Other than the oil, the plugs were extremely hard to remove. That is telling me these are the original plugs with 70,000 miles. The timing belt looks about like a belt with 70,000 miles should look.

Pictures below.

Oil in the valley



Timing belt picture



Spark Plugs

 

You sure it's oil and not rust colored coolant? It's not scientific really but taste usually helps figure out what it is... Wouldn't swallow haha

Not uncommon for those valley pipes to crack at the flange too and spill coolant

 

It is oil. I think it may have been there a while. The valve cover gaskets had turned to plastic and the cover bolts were all loose because the grommets had become hard as a rock.

I've not seen this one before.

 

Holly BATMAN, those valves look terrible, not sure what’s going on there but now is the time to clean them.

The advantage with a methonal injection kit are that the system will keep the valves squeaky clean like mine below compared to yours

 

Panic attack. Maybe that's why my intake is so clean because of the methanol in the fuel. Classic case lack of maintenance.

 

A methanol injection kit will steam clean those valves perfectly all the time.

 

This is classic "granny car" carbon buildup. Short trips to the grocery store and never letting the engine get to normal operating temperature for very long seems to make this worse.

Roughly 6 years ago, I bought an 83,000-mile engine out of a rear-ended 95 Maxima. I could tell the car was owned by an elderly person who didn't drive it often.
I've never seen such a carboned up mess for a low miles engine. If they don't get the engines hot enough to burn it off, it just builds up. For that one, I took a borescope and looked saw how the pistons were covered in carbon. So I did the old Saturn trick with Marvel Mystery oil and filled up the cylinders to the intake runner and let it sit until it all drained out into the oil pan. Then, later on, I was looking into the cylinder and I could see some bumps on the top of the pistons. It scared me. After a closer look, I could see some numbers that were part cast into the pistons. Soaking it in Marvel did a good job of cleaning up carbon mess.

This one will look good when I'm done.

Do you guys have any experience with TCW3 as a fuel additive? I've tried it a few times. But never used it long enough to reap the benefits. I know some guys who swear by it.

 

Plugs looking good showing a healthy engine.
Use the anti-seize lube when you install the new plugs.

 

Always.

 

Build up like that was not uncommon driving habits, maintenance etc when they are in the shape pictured the fix was walnut shell blasting. The jury is still out on methanol or even just plain water injection walnut shells work it is a proven fix if you don't want to dismantle the engine. It would be a good ideal to have a close look at the EGR system.

 

This engine was really carboned up when I got it over 5 years ago. IIRC, I used Marvel Mystery oil to clean up the intakes. The 5VZFE will look like this when I'm done.

 

Tonight I started the Marvel Mystery Oil treatment in the intakes. It takes a few days of cycling through the cylinders to soak each intake with the valves closed. I turn the crank to close the valves, the fill the intake port with MMO and let it soak. Usually, in 24 hours it melts away the carbon buildup. I have a small parts cleaning brush that I bring in at the end to finish it off.

This was after a couple of hours this evening.



Before