What do you do to clean out the inside of a motor after a gasket failure? One where the blown gasket opens opens up a path for coolant to reach the crankcase. The result can be a real mess. There are a thousand videos and web forum posts on replacing blown head gaskets but I only found one and I am just a little skeptic. In that particular You Tube video the mechanic (?) simply replaced the head gasket and filled the crankcase with a mix of motor oil and diesel fuel. After idling for a while the mix was drained out and replaced with motor oil. Good to go. I'm not doubting it worked because I believe everything I see on the net However my mind says this ain't the way real mechanics do the job. Must be someone here on the HAMB who can validate the diesel oil trick or describe the right way to do it.
It sorta makes sense. Diesel/kerosene is lighter than water and motor oil is heavier than water. If you ran and oil/diesel mix through the engine, then let it settle in the oil pan, you would have diesel on top, any remaining water trapped in the middle and oil on the bottom. Might work.
I would worry about the "idling for a while" part. If left to idle for too long, there could be more damage done due to the lack of proper lubrication.
While diesel fuel does a great job lubricating the internal mechanism of an injector. I doubt it has the viscosity to properly support the friction coefficient of your rod and main bearings. I would personally p*** on using it in the crankcase.
Usually just do two oil changes after a head gasket failure or coolant in the oil situation. One when the repair is done And one shortly after usually 50 k or so
Yeah, diesel fuel in the oil will kill the bearings in short time. Seen it happen in diesel trucks, bad injector flood the pan, take out the bearings. It will sometimes eat the gaskets if it doesn't get the bearings first. Seen dry, tight engines become major oil leakers in a short time.
As I sit here drinking my "emulsified" coffee (cream and sugar).... I think BamaMav is right about the bearings and gaskets with too much diesel added to the oil. I wonder if the video mentioned what ratio to use?
I pull the pan and clean it out, on a V8 engine when the intake is off I clean out the lifter valley. It may take a case of brake clean.
Just change the fluids. Run it & change them again. Run distilled water instead of antifreeze initially .. to save some money. Its 80 cents a gallon at Wally World. Couple oil changes with filter should do it.
At first, I thought, the engine is idling and not under load. How bad can a little diesel be? Then I thought, well, you might want run a while to warm that concoction up. That's sort of scary! Somebody do this and then send the resulting crankcase oil out to one of those labs and report back. .............* .......I'll wait here for the results.
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