Change Your Oil!

[SKY031]

I've posted this on another forum, but for those of you who reside here, I'm posting it here as well.

I couldn't decide whether to title this "Change your oil" or "Cleaning internals on a budget"....

it's actually a bit of both.

Firstly, CHANGE YOUR OIL!

A few years ago SKY031 came to be in my possession as a stolen recovered vehicle.

In the first few months of owning it, the rocker cover was removed so that it could be painted/polished.

When we removed the rocker cover, it became quite apparent that it's previous (south australian ) owner hadn't been terribly fond of changing the oil, and it was full of crusties.

We picked out the worst of the crusties, and then did the usual, changed the oil, did an oil flush, changed the oil again, and hoped for the best.

It was only a matter of time until something broke, but in the meantime it was still working, so in the spirit of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" life went on.

Well........ it finally broke.

Unfortunately I didn't get a pic of inside the rocker cover once it was removed, but to try and give you some idea of how vile the engine was inside, here's a shot of the rockers.

Needless to say, these needed to be cleaned before they were put back in.

Tried detergents.

Tried solvents.

Didn't work.

Turps won't budge 20 year old crusties, even with a toothbrush and lots of elbow grease.

Just as it was starting to look as if the internals were going to need to be cleaned by a pro, I had an idea.....

Which every day household product could accomplish such a mammoth task?

OVEN CLEANER!!!!

So out came the oven cleaner, and wouldn't you know it, the can was 99% empty.

Off to the supermarket I go.

Home brand oven cleaner $2.55

Home brand gloves .54c

Home brand toothbrush .55c

The satisfaction of being able to do it in my own backyard, priceless! :lol:

Here is a pic of what they looked like afterwards.

-take into account that the first image was taken in full sun.

the "after" shot was taken in shade, and dulls the shine a little, but you can still get an idea of how well it worked.

So to stop this from happening to you, give your car an oil change for christmas.

[sewid]

Ya oven cleaner is toxic stuff. Imagine women all over the world breathing this stuff in when they clean our ovens for us. No wonder they are so crazy.

[SKY031]

er.. you DO know I'm a woman, right?

but at least now I can blame the chemicals for making me schiz. :lol:

[jetskyliner33]

Ha Ha !!! great work sky031, came up real good!

[elbee111]

Wow.

When I first looked at pic 1 it looked as though they were chipped and pitted etc.

After a while I realised that this was just the "crusty stuff" that you mentioned.

I change my oil and filter every 5,000 and find it hard to believe that anyone can run their car up to the point that you showed.

Shame.

El Bee

ps. change your oil !

[CRSRB25DE]

You do realise the active ingridient in most oven cleaners is sodium hydroxide... aka caustic.

Which is fine for steel, cast iron etc but not for alluminium, lead and other soft metals.... ie. it will eat it.

It is the same chemical used in the "hot tank" at engine shops.

[SKY031]

I should have also gone on to say that all components that came in contact with the oven cleaner were washed extremely well with detergent and 2 different spirit baths so that no contamination was carried into the head... we also toyed with the idea of sticking them in (someone elses) dishwasher.

If any "melting" occured it would be a shame...

I'd be terribly sad if the tired old RB30 had to be replaced with an RB26. :lol: