Farm truck and oil flush

Mtjohnso · May 21, 2020

Farm truck is 96 Dodge Dakota with a V8.
Put oil in the engine but noticed oil was draining down into engine very slowly.
Was thinking about doing an oil flush to break things up and clean out the engine. Would use oil flush from local auto store. Concern is that things breakup and plug it up even more.
I knew one person that dumped diesel into engine and ran engine for 15 minutes then drained.
What?s your experience and thoughts?

SVcummins · May 22, 2020

I?ve used the flush that auto parts stores sell before . The modern detergent oil does a pretty good job of not leaving any sludge on the inside of the engine as it is

Steve@Advance · May 22, 2020

If the engine is so clogged that oil can't drain down from the valve covers, engine flush won't have a chance.

The covers will need to come off and the sludge scraped out, vacuumed up at the same time. Even that method will still get some sludge down into the valley, unless you're willing to pull the intake to clean under there too.

For a modern, fuel injected, emission controlled engine to get that dirty, something is wrong, usually rings severely worn. Might be time to start looking into another engine or a rebuild.

rustred · May 22, 2020

well if he ran the engine for 15 minutes he would have damaged the brgs. and done more damage than good. its ok to just start and stop it for like 5-10 seconds to flush the oil galleries. who ever had that unit must have never changed the oil. as that's about the only way things will sludge up . unless you got something going on there with the oil drain .even if the oil changes were run up to 10,000 miles I don't thnk the oil would sludge up. plus a lot depends on the driving and engine operating temperature, cold running and short trips not good. also would have to know what oil he was using. to clean the engine need to pull valve covers and oil pan for a clean out job. and if its sludged up that bad that engine is worn out..

Texasmark1 · May 24, 2020

I bought a 1988 tractor with 900 hours a couple of years ago from an estate sale. Had at least a ?" or so sludge in the engine oil pan....stuck my finger in the drain hole and felt it. I changed the oil-filter and ran the engine up to temp, then added a full pint can of Sea Foam to the oil and ran it for half an hour at 1k rpm or less sitting parked...no stress on the engine. Immediately drained/changed that and refilled. When checking the pan after the drain, no more sludge. SF has instructions on the can. Other things surely work. I just keep a stock of the stuff and decided to use that....I keep it in my spark ignition engine fuels.

Farm truck and oil flush

Mtjohnso

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SVcummins

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Steve@Advance

Well-known Member

rustred

Well-known Member

Texasmark1

Well-known Member

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