1990 E350 5.7 120000 miles, over heated during long cold trip by blocking radiator partially. Lost oil pressure, sludge and debris came from oil pan. Filled with diesel fuel and started, changed oil and has been fine, no smoke, noise or consuption and good pressure. 15000 miles later overtowing, (6 tons) lost pressure again, tried the same thing and now pressure drops out after one min. and or acceleration. I was told I could clean out screen by blowing air or diesel fuel through oil filter nipple. I wasn't sure wich port went to screen the threaded nipple or the hole just below it. Any ideas or suggestions are welcomed. I was also told this is common problem, oil screen to fine and clogs easyily,is this true.


Signed,
" Dosent wanna remove pan"

 

If you mean cloged screen in the oil sump. I think that it would be the small hole not the threaded one. I am not for sure though. My reasoning is that when you look at the oil filter, it traps the dirt and other particles on the out side. The clean oil goes out the center hole to the engine. Plus the way the silicon flap in the filter traps the oil in the filter by not letting it flow back to the pan through the small holes. If it was the other way around then all of the oil would drain back to the pan causing long dry startups. I hope you get my reasoning.

Let me know what you think

Josh

 

im curious about this too. your reasoning sounds good, prolly is the small hole not the threaded one.

 

The small hole comes from the pump so you would be trying to blow thru the pump. That won't work very well.

 

The good part is if it works the screen is clean. Bad part is every thing you blow out is going to get sucked back up.

 

well I would drain the oil pan afterwards of course, I also have an endoscope camera that I plan on feeding up there through the oil drain hole to see what it looks like before and after.

 

With oil drain plug out, I fed some diesel through the hole at the oil filter (not the threaded one, the other hole), I got a lot of cruddy/gritty metal and chunks that poured out with the diesel through the oil drain plug hole into my catch pan.
I did this for a while, as posted above the diesel did not move through there very quickly, it was slow, so im not sure how much of the screen got cleaned.
so after a while, I put the oil drain plug back in, and I filled it up with about 1 gallon of diesel, so the screen should be completely submerged.
In a couple days I will drain the pan again and see how much crap comes out.
Also the oil filter on this truck was a FRAM, and it was VERY OLD (and difficult to remove), I wouldn't be surprised if this filter was on this truck for years, cut it open and inside the filter the element was trashed and very old looking.
I am going to pick up a magnetic oil drain plug too, and I will be doing frequent oil changes for a while till it starts coming out clean.

EDIT: The endoscope/borescope camera did not work well, its a good camera, but not enough light, would need a second light to feed into the oil pan to be able to see much.

 

Drained the diesel out of the oil pan, installed a Tee and aftermarket oil pressure gauge, and installed a magnetic oil plug.

Then finished the oil change with Delo 400LE 15w-40 and a motorcraft FL1A

On startup it has 50psi cold now, will see what it does on a longer trip today.

 

Keep us posted. I read that sea foam works good for this to.

 

Drove 50 miles today, the gauge in the cluster stayed in the middle the whole entire trip.

Thanks to my aftermarket gauge I noticed something though, on the way into town, after warmed up, the oil pressure would drop to about 30-35 at idle, and the second I gave it any gas it would shoot back up to 40-50.

The way home was a different story, my oil pressure cruising was at about 35 psi, giving it gas would cause the oil pressure to DROP to around 25, then soon as I let up on the pedal and let it idle the oil pressure would shoot back up to 30-35...

so some more crap must have found its way through the motor to the pickup screen.

I don't think I will have it completely fixed until several oil pan drains.

Oh and once I got home I shut it down and let it set for a few minutes, started it back up and it was back up to 40 psi, the stuff clogging it must have settled back to the bottom of the pan.

I think the dash one shuts off at less than 7 psi? so definitely an improvement from what it did the other day.

Eventually I plan to drop the pan and replace pan gasket, valve cover gasket, and push rod cover gasket, but I am hoping to get most of the crap out of the engine first.

 

Did another flush + oil change. Drove a nice long trip today, ~100 miles. No issues with oil pressure. Always 30-50psi depending on temp and rpm.

 

With the amount of material you still have floating around, I dont think Id be reusing any oil for risk of re contaminating the engine. You drain a chunk of steel out of the pan and pour it into the top end where it couldnt get to before.

Oil is cheap compared to an engine.

 

I didn't end up reusing the oil, it came out pretty dark and I just decided to put new oil and filter. I agree, oil is too cheap to risk reusing it.

 

Get a can of Seafoam, and add it to the oil (just like you would add oil) and drive it long enough to allow the engine to fully warm up, and the seafoam to really do its job.

Pull in, shut the truck off and IMMEDIATELY drop the oil. That way any sludge dislodged goes out the oil pan drain and not just settling in the pan to clog the pickup screen.

Seafoam is ~$10/can here.

See what your results are.

P.S-It can be added to the gas tank and the intake (Via the brake booster vacuum hose while the engine is running) to clean the injectors, etc.