So I decided to order my valve cover gaskets today. Parts store said they would be there in the morning. I went ahead and removed the valve covers, figured I could clean them up with a coat of paint. When I removed the covers I seem alot of sludge. The worst I ever seen actually.
Is there something I can add to the oil to help clean it up. Is it something that has to be ran along time? I currently have a bad radiator in it so it would have to be at idle? Thank you for your help

 

I have used a cheap shop vac to clean up sludge under valve covers. Break it loose with a screwdriver and get it out of there. You dont want it going into the pan and clogging up the pickup screen. I have seen that happen using engine flush liquids. You may be better off to not disturb it.

 

You can try and clean out as much as you can like suggested. As far as something to add to the oil, the only thing that I would Auto Rx. It works differently than most other engine cleaners. Most can cause chunks to brake off and clog stuff up. Auto Rx works slowly over the course of 3k miles and dissolves it to keep it from doing this.

Auto-Rx Plus Non-Toxic Sludge Remover and Cleaner for Engines and Transmissions

 

Try a coupe short oil changes if you have the money.

 

Cleaned up the engine bay today. New valve cover gaskets and some paint sure helped. I was going to post a couple pics. I can't seem to figure it out

 

You need to host pics on a site like photobucket (it's free), then you copy the url.. not exactly sure how but I usually manage to make it work, I believe it is the stickies in the 80-86 section.