i am doing a partial engine tear down and rebuild on my 239 inline 6. i have owned the car for less than a year and its fairly original complete with 50 years worth of dirt encrusted oil leaks and rust to boot. just wanted to give the engine a freshen up, clean/ paint and replace of all gaskets.. well once i got in there i first noticed a bit of grey gooy shtuff when i removed the side valve covers... i gathered it may have been some engine prelube that never washed away with oil.. i was curious about it but didn't think too much further until i got down to removing the oil pan... there was a tun of it in there...so i doubted it could be pre ***embly lube unless they used a gallon of it. to describe its consistency i would say it was almost clay like.. it was at least a half inch thick.. greasy and slimy on top and then thicker and dryer the deeper you dug.. anyone know what might have caused this?.. it doesnt seem to have harmed anything but i will be sure to thougholy remove it. my other theory is possibly from additives added to the fuel or crankcase oil. ie) lead subs***ue that blew by and into the crank case?. anyone that can give me possible explanations or has similar experience please post up!
Be careful.... that is lead from the old days of leaded gasoline. You will absorb that stuff through your skin and it will screw you up fast..
The gray "goop" you describe sounds like the result of water mixing with the oil. Could be serious condensation, or more likely an internal water leak,
the grey goop is just the normal stuff that collects in an oil pan from 20+ years of running with non-detergent oil....like they did in the old days. Treat it as toxic waste, but don't be concerned that it's there, it is perfectly normal.
I'm going with Squirrel here and add that cars in the early 50's running Pennzoil detergent used to have pan build up that was light grey (almost white) very common (I hate this term) back in the day
Very normal for the 50's though the 70's. Oil ****ed in those day and he filters were even worse. Just clean it out good and oput her back together.
Yeah, I don't think I ever took a '50s or '60s engine apart that didn't have clay in the pan - unless someone had recently cleaned it out. Condensation in the oil plus who knows what.
I had some when I picked up my 56' pontiac... probably not nearly as serious, but enough that it looked like diahrea squeezing out of the oil drain hole. I honestly didn't care if the motor stayed together or not (I was most likely going to replace it), so I tried out a couple methods to get rid of it, just to see if I could get it out without dis***embling the motor. First I mixed Kerosene with some motor oil and filled the crankcase up. Let it sit in there awhile and soak into the stuff and then I started the motor, Let it run for about 15min up to operating temp. Then let it cool down. Then ran it again for 15min. Then Let it cool down. Then flushed the pan. Then went through the process again. I also cleaned out the oil filter can manually. Then went through the process again after cleaning the oil filter. After that I put in a new filter and put in a quart of Rislone with my oil. Ran it for about 75-100mi. Then emptied it out. Most of the grey stuff was gone. Put another quart of Rislone in with the oil and have been running it. Will find out soon if it's all gone when I change it again. One thing is for sure.... it hasn't messed up the motor yet. And the motor sounds great. The biggest thing is to find some way to break up the build up before running it. Get as much of it out as you can before trying this, also if it is serious and dry and hard, there is no way to get around dropping the pan and covers to clean it out by hand. If a dry chunk gets into the bearings or a oil p***age you will be sorry.
Ran across that twice, my first car, a 66 Chev witha 283. Had the canister filter on it. Was using Quaker State oil, when it was still the greenie-yellow looking stuff, now it was ok. The gunk showed up when I went to ESSO brand oil. Took about 4 oil changes with the Quaker State before it cleared up again. It wasn't condensation, that poor ol motor never got the chance to cool off. Years later, I was wrenching in a GM dealership. An old guy had a Ford pick up with an inline six. Oil light was flickering, low pressure. Tappet cover was clogged full of ****, took two coffee cups of gunk from the cover and top of the head around the valves. Put half and half of diesel and oil in it, and went for a good run, got her warmed right up. Got back and dropped the oil and filter, put in the new stuff. And wah-lah, fixed the flickering oil light...stayed on nice and bright after that. He traded it in on a used truck, with oil pressure!
thanks for the info guys!! much appreciated... i figured it may be normal/harmless enough and just needed a good clean out. still,i would love lab results on what it is. but i will treat it as lead/toxic waste as toystoretom and squirrel says.
DO what ever you want to do it is not a lead build up just poor oils & filters along with lack of care I know I work on car for 47 yrs and would clean the stuff out with a s****pr and my bare hands I'm still alive .
I had the same problem in a newer car, but I figure it's worth mentioning. I had a bunch of sludge buildup due to the car running lean and the previous owner not changing the oil frequently. The oil broke down and heated up so much that it sludged. More than likely not your problem, but it might be worth checking to see if your car is running lean and burning up the oil.
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