VN V8 Rocker Cover Gunge

[88GreenVN]

The rocker covers were leaking a small amount of oil and had scratches in them so I took them off to give them a clean up and fresh paint. The left hand side had about 2 coffee cups full of black gunge and carbon. I cleaned it off for about 2 hours before painting. This gunge has been coming loose and blocking the oil pickup - making low oil pressure at start up and an oil change before the 5,000kms is up.

Any way they are painted now and back on.

[immortality]

have you tried an engine flush? one day that gunk gonna block yourpickup and your going to do damage to your engine with no oil pressure etc

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

The results of crap oil and too long between changes. Years ago I found Castrol GTX did this. Probably got like that before you bought it.

[88GreenVN]

have you tried an engine flush? one day that gunk gonna block yourpickup and your going to do damage to your engine with no oil pressure etc

The last 3 oil changes have had engine flush put in. The oil is not going black now but the car gets a bloob bloob sound on start up, until oil pressure is up - only does it for a few seconds. So I'm glad I cleand it out - but whats in the rest of the engine. I'll keep using engine flush until it comes clean.

[88GreenVN]

The results of crap oil and too long between changes. Years ago I found Castrol GTX did this. Probably got like that before you bought it.

Some of the gunge in the pan has a red colour to it - what would that be? looks like almost dirt.

[immortality]

if your real keen you could lift the engine a little so you can drop the oil pan and give everything a good clean etc

[AirStrike]

For the love of christ don't use those engine flush treatments. They flush all right...........all the **** into the sump to then block the pickup!

[88GreenVN]

For the love of christ don't use those engine flush treatments. They flush all right...........all the **** into the sump to then block the pickup!

So just keep changing the oil only until it stops clogging up. At the moment I'm getting about 4000km out of the oil befroe it blocks up!

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

The red tinge would be fuel contamination.

[88GreenVN]

The red tinge would be fuel contamination.

Oh thats good - it look so much like the red dirt from the bush.

[greenfoam]

The safest thing to do with the 5 litre is just keep changing the oil often untill it comes clean slowly slowly, it might take 100,000ks but it will happen :P

Something I see missing on your car is the VS series 2 V8 airbox lid so go to Holden and grab one of those one day and steal the short rubber intake hose from a VN V6 or order one from a series 2 VS V8 (same part) and your bearing cap rubbers ontop of the struts are pretty worn out so you might want to replace those one day (get proper black rubber ones), apart from that I'm happy

[IMCRZY]

The results of crap oil and too long between changes. Years ago I found Castrol GTX did this. Probably got like that before you bought it.

Yea i know a couple of pll that have had the same trouble....

[greenfoam]

The guy in my repco sells Castrol magnatec? in his shop and even he says it ruins engines odd?

[Not_An_Abba_Fan]

Probably because of the reputation GTX had, from what I hear since GTX2 came out it has been OK.

[88GreenVN]

The engine oil changes by me have been regular on my cars - about the 5000km range. Before radars - in the out back you could drive at high speed (if the car n driver were up to it) So to drive like this the oil had to be in good nic. The worked Chris Milton 253 I had (cost $3,000 many years ago) had oil changes regularly and would not be black as or smell yuk at change time. The tell tail sign was the lifters would clatter on start up - oil change as soon as I heard this sound. The clatter noise was ENGINE PARTS WEARING OUT. Oil is cheap so I changed it.

But the VN 5.0 was the worst I have seen in a car of mine. Man I was staggered to see sooo much gunge. No wonder the pickup was getting blocked. I purchased the car as a low milage car with books - going by that the car never had an oil change in its life OR they told me a fib......