Would seafoam help clean this (pic inside)?
 

This is a picture I took while checking the valve clearances on my Ford the other day:

https://img222.imageshack.us/img222/9845/imgp6708sg2.jpg

I am no expert, but think it a little dirty. It also started lacking power recently.
In your opinion would Seafoam help or would it clean too much and increase oil consumption beyond reasonable levels?

It's a 1989 model with 183.000 Km (roughly 114.000 miles) on the clock.

Thanks for your input!

I am a fan of the recently available "High Mileage" engine oils we can get over here now. They have both extra detergents and seal conditioners in. This means they can clean the motor up, and not make it leak. They also seem to improve oil consumption and leakage generally. I believe they also might have some additives in that more recent engines don't need, extra zinc for stopping slider cams scuffing for example, or that are more detrimental to recent higher density catalytic convertors, but older and non-cat systems are fine with.

Anyway, if you can find such a product in Portugal, it may well be worth trying.

Normally I'd recommend a strong flush for a dirty engine, but in this case I'd be way too afraid of loosening up all those chunks of carbon. If that stuff comes loose it will plug up the oil pick up screen and destroy the engine. Your best choice in my opinion is to manually scrape and vacuum all that carbon and debris out of the cylinder head. After that just make sure to use a quality motor oil that has detergent in it. If you ever have the time to remove the oil pan, then definitely do it. With the oil pan removed you'll be able to scrape the rest of the engine internals and also clean off the oil screen on your oil pump. If you did do those two things- then I'd recommend sea foam or some other oil cleaner additive.

Good Luck!

JOE

Ok, I haven't had any covers of my bus engine or anything, but she's got a lot of miles.

I bought some of this...https://www.auto-rx.com/...and it's specifically for those kinds of issues.

Basically, you'll use it in conjunction with a good dino oil over a 2500 mile cycle, using two filters in that period. Then, you'll use dino oil for the next oil change interval, a rinse phase. I'm going to do this in a few weeks myself as I start driving the bus again.

Here's a 2nd vote for Auto-RX.
Lots of good things said about it at Bob is the oil guy site. https://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ubbthreads.php

If you have high mileage on the engine, do the clean & rinse twice.

:thumbup: for Auto-Rx.

Auto-Rx's Forum.

BITOG's Oil Additives Forum.

While doing your research, be sure to pay attention to the differences between solvent-type cleaners and Auto-Rx.

I was just reading a post on that forum from someone using auto-rx. https://auto-rx.activeboard.com/index...picID=15010733The guy had a very similar problem, with lots of crud built up inside his engine. He has a corolla with 80K miles and "lots of chunks of black stuff inside the engine...". He decided to start adding auto-rx, which loosened up all those solid particles (known as coke deposits). He said it ran fine for almost a year and now he can't understand why his oil light keeps coming on. He says it runs fine for short trips, but after 10 miles the light comes on and stays on.

This is whats happened to that guy- all those solid pieces of black stuff are separated from the walls of the engine block and are now floating throughout his engine and plugging up little oil passages/filters/etc. The oil pickup screen is being blocked off by all the large solid pieces of carbon/coke that are much to big to fit through the screen. So they have no where to go except to sit in the bottom of the oil screen, preventing oil from getting to the oil pump. When he shuts down the engine, all the oil inside the pump slowly drains out and pushes some of the debris out of the oil screen. Then when he starts up it slowly sucks all that junk back to the screen until it's blocked. I see this happen all the time, almost all the engines I've rebuilt had one thing in common, the oil pick up screen was blocked by debris. If the engine was just dirty and black then no problem, run the cleaner through it. But with solid pieces of carbon and coke, theres no way to break them apart except to physically scrape them off.

Just be careful with your decision to add strong "cleaners". You know your engine best, I'd hate to see the same thing happen to you as that guy on the forum.

Good point, that's why I liked that high mileage oil, it cleaned my minivan's motor up slowly, over about 3 oil changes... the first couple went very black over about 2500 miles, then it started coming out lighter, now it comes out a dark amber at change time. My heads looked about like the one above as I peered through the filler with the flashlight, now they are just stained brownish, I can actually see the gleam of the metal through it again.

I would go crazy with a power wash but plug all the drain holes into the engine first and then you have a real cleanup of the ground under the car. The oil pan will be bretty nasty too so that will need a really good cleaning as well . . . take it off also. Other choice is to remove the head completely and degrease it and get a good look at the piston tops and combustion chamber while you are at it. Oil pump picks up the junk and then the filter should remove it and it should not get into the engine passages unless the filter builds up too much pressure and the bypass valve opens up in the filter.

That is how my VW engine looked when I got it.
I bought some engine flush. You put it in your oil, let your car idle for 5 minutes, and then change your oil.
When I changed the oil, I put that high mileage oil in my car.
It seems to have done a good job of cleaning up the engine. I haven’t had any problems yet. My biggest worry was that the deposits that were broken loose would be floating around the engine and I would end up spinning a bearing.