97 f-250 with 100k miles. Using penzoil 10w30 for last 12 months. Ticks loud at start-up. No tick when warm. Recently noticed black crud on the lower inside walls of filler neck (carbon?). Any ideas what the crud is? Engine flush help or hurt?

G.

 

If you are going to use a flush, avoid the over the counter solvent based flushs. They are viscosity reducers at best. You would be better served by changing the oil to the 153-H spec 5w-20 than using one of these flushs. If you want to use a flush, I would suggest Auto-Rx. It is an ester based product similiar to the esters used in synthetic oils. It won't strip the engine or seals, won't reduce the viscosity, won't cause any wear on components. It is a slow process to use though. The website is www.auto-rx.com as I remember. Make sure to read and follow the instructions at the website. I would also suggest checking the cooling system as it sounds like you may have either a coolant leak into the oil system or slight overheat problem starting up. You can have the oil analized at the next oil change and that would give you the answer. Oil analysis is fairly inexpensive at Blackstone Labs. Might want to give it a try.

 

Just feel like giving my two cent in to, i've been a Tech. for FORD over 30+ years, 1st. if you have over 100,000 mile dont run any type of flush, you'll wash out your bearings ,if you feel it needs it add 1or2qts of trans oil lubes your motor and well clean it, now if you want to Stop the ticking, change to a different brand of oil and use a 10w30.

 

What about the "flush" that you run for 5 minutes just prior to doing an oil & filter change?

 

I agree with Flash or use a little Marvel Mystery Oil.

How will a flush wash out bearings? Transmission fluid is for transmissions. Using it in an engine is foolish when there are proper products to aid in build up removal.

 

If it were me, I'd try some CH-4 / SL rated oil. It has higher detergency than your standard energy conserving oil. I think it will be safer than any flush on the market. Look for 10w30, since that's the closest weight it's offered in to what your truck needs. Some brands to look for are Shell Rotella T, Mystik JT-8, and Chevron Delo. I'm sure there are more than just these 3, though.

 

just got my blackstone black on mobil 1 with 13,300, wish i had a damn scanner though so i could show everyone

 

If you use the flash? it well do what it says flush out all the carbon / crud out ,now if you think all that stuff got in the motor from the OIL , so if you flash it your cleaning out the oil, witch protects the bearings. also trans oil well not hurt the engine , two qts+3motor oil let it idle 15/30min and change it,oil/filter. type F oil has good cleaning agents in it.Besides if an engine has alot of crud in it and has over 100,000 it may need to be OH.

 

I gave Blackstone my email and then sent me an acrobat file copy of my UOA, but I just typed all the numbers in because I have no idea how to post pictures or scans anymore since about two FTE site updates ago. Too busy surfing oil and lube forums to figure it out.

BTW, since we are talking about engine flushes I would avoid the solvent flushes too. High detergent oil helps, but I looked over the Auto-Rx website and that stuff sounds pretty good. I might try it, but was not ready for the cleaning regime it requires.

 

I have a 1986 Ford F150 with a 302 efi V8 i bought the truck from older gentleman he was 94 to be exact and he had purchased the truck new
the truck had 64840 orig miles on the engine. I did not know however that grandpa had not been one to change the oil on a regular basis. on the first oil change i noticed the oil got black very quickly after i changed it. Long story short decided to use the 10 minute oil flush product on it and it worked a little too well. at first nothing seemed to be wrong then the rear main seal began to leak. After this the oil pressure at idle would hardly even register on the guage. then it began to knock on start up. then it began to knock all the time warm or cold . Before it totaly destroyed the engine i decided to pull it and see what had happened when I removed the pan there was no kidding an inch of crud in the oil pan that completely blocked the pick up tube. it destoyed the mains. rods and crankshaft the only bearings left in tact were the cam bearings. this 302 before i used the engine flush a non leaking perfect running engine..... Will I ever use anything but oil in my F 150 not on your life..... bright side to the story I got to build the 347 stroker motor I had always wanted to build and put it in my F 150.... I will pass everything but a gas pump now...... Just my two cents......although my wife accuses me of having no sence..........

 

That's the problem I see with flushes. They remove the stuff too quick. Above is a perfect example.

That's why I stick with my diesel rated oil. Removes stuff slowly over the oil change interval. When I first ran it (Mystik JT-8 10w30) in my '92 explorer, it was black within 1000 miles. Mobil drive clean (yeah right) had been run in it before, with Castrol GTX before that, and Trop Artic before that when my dad was driving it. After 3000 miles, I drained it and it was quite black. Second change with it, it got black in about 2000 miles. Changed at 3000 miles, and quite black again. Third time, it was dark at 3000 miles when I changed it, not as bad as before. Now, it gets a little darker when I drain it than when I put it in, but not bad. I can still see light through the oil stream flowing out of the oil pan, anyway. To me, this says it has removed the majority of the sludge from the engine.

 

Do you know the oil change history prior to the last 12 months? If the oil has been changed on a fairly regular basis and the truck was allowed to warm up fully for most trips, I would be very reluctant to attempt to clean the inside of the engine. One way to determine if the engine is really sludged up is to change the oil and check the level on the dipstick before you run it. If you have a really high level, sludge may have reduced the volume in the oil pan. Unless you can see very heavy build up of sludge , or you think your valve covers are filling up due to lack of drain back, I would suggest NOT flushing the engine. The only non racing bearing failures I am aware of personnaly involved engine flushes.

 

I agree that a good oil with adequate detergents, working slowly over time, is a much better alternative than the "quick flush" products.

As for Auto-Rx, right before I dropped the oil pan on my Taurus SHO to change the rod bearings, I did an Auto-Rx treatment. I followed the directions pretty much to the letter, changing filters, etc. My thinking was that, when it came time to drop the pan and do the bearing job, this was going to cause virtually all the oil to drain completely out of the engine, so it was a good time for a thorough flush.

When I was draining the oil before unbolting the pan, I took note of how black it was, and I started thinking that I might find some real crud at the bottom of the pan, and/or maybe some other unpleasant things. On the contrary. Aside from a light "film" on the pan surface, it was otherwise quite clean. In fact, the whole bottom end looked pretty darn good for 138K, and the oil pump pickup screen was as free and clear as when it came off the assembly line.

And FWIW, my crank seal and cam seals were all originals at that time (I know this because a few months later I changed out all the seals), and there was no sign of any leakage or seal erosion caused by the Auto-Rx treatment.

My feeling is that the Auto-Rx performed exactly as advertised, in that it cleaned my engine in a slow and sure manner, but did not otherwise harm it. So I am sold on Auto-Rx as an engine flush.

 

Nice to hear that the AutoRx worked for you. I am thinking of trying it after I use up my stock of blend oil. ARX says you should use straight dino oil, so I figure Valvoline All Climate should work great.

 

1 cup of kerosene run for about five opr ten min
then run good oil with a qt of tranny fluid change often