Hi Guys.. Its been a while. I got this 289 running not long ago and then started hearing a tap at the drivers side. I pulled the valve covers and everything is dry and sludged. I rebuilt the sticking lifter that was tapping but it still needs more love due to the lack of oil flow. I dont have the funds for a rebuild right now but I was thinking that I could pull the engine and strip it to a short block and scrape/clean/scrub the innards with some diesel to get my flow back. Like a home made hot tank. Then change all the gaskets while Im at it.

Im in the middle of stripping and painting this car, so its not like I have to have it running right away. But having a running car seems to make my motivation for getting off my *** and painting it a little higher.

Any thoughts?

 

You need to find out why you had sludge first. Also, chances are that there's some **** tore up inside the engine.

 

This car sat for about 10 years in the hills of CA. It had been maintained well before that as far as I know, but had sat for a while before being used as a driver for a teenager. That may be why it's gunked up. Any qualms with me just cleaning it up to restore oil flow?

 

You can clean it up and drive it, and see what happens. But you should expect it to have issues. You'll be lucky if it doesn't.

 

engines do not get gunk or caked on sludge if they are well maintained . . based on your description someone ran that thing with the same oil for probably 50,000 miles or more.

you can run a qt of rislone in it to see if it frees up the lifter so it gets quiet . . if its still noisy after driving around 300 miles with it, it wont help.

cleaning will not increase oil flow because your oil passages are not blacked in the slightest.
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