So I have a 2005 1500 with a engine swap to a lm7 with a mild cam roller rockers dual springs etc. stock crack etc... Problem was i had a failed valve stem seal a few months back. So i pulled the heads to search for all the missing chunks of metal and rubber. Found them all and replaced ALL of the valve stem seals. I was a bit rushed however and made a rookie LS heads mistake by not thuroughly cleaning out all of the head bold threads in my block. And guess what happened? about 150 miles into it i was missing all my antifreeze. Dont worry though i located it fairly quickly when i pulled my dip stick... The heads backed off and allowed it all to flow right in to my crank case cam valley etc.
So.... now im back in the garage with heads off, they are back from the macine shop, although, i had them replace all of the valve stem seals (remember i have dual springs so they are the old school type, not the top hat design) but when i got the heads back i noticed one of the seals is already unseated from the guide and sitting right under the valve spring retainer?! WTH right?

So first Question, Do you think i should just compress and remove the springs on the one valve and reseat that one seal, or take it back to the machine shop and have them look at it? maybe my guides are too worn or my valves are?

Second question what is the best method of cleaning out all that thick chocolate milkshake aintfreeze/oil sludge out of my block?!? KEEP IN MIND my motor is still in the truck and im not able to pull it at this time. (truck is in a friends garage with limited time and space. And no cherry picker or stand.

Any advice appreciated thanks..

 

Take the head back to the machine shop so they can check and fix. As far as the sludge i never had to deal with that but since you have the heads i would just replace the lifters. I would flush the motor while the heads are off. Open the drain on the oil pan and flush from the top. Not sure what is the best thing to use but i have read ATF (auto trans fluid) works good.

 

Thanks gagliano that is what i was planning just wanted to see if anyone new any better ways or products to use... But why do you suggest i change out my lifters? They were installed with my rods rockers springs and cam not more than 12k miles ago. If i Change lifters i might as well change rods too... right?

 

Well at least check and make sure they are not all gummed from the sludge. Your rods should be fine. Oil flows through the lifters that is why i suggest you replace them. They can get clogged pretty easy and then tick.

 

Ya I'm actually in the proccess of disassemble all of the lifters and cleaning them all out. You are right about them being gummed up lol

 

Blow the head bolt holes out with compressed air, clean with brake clean, blow out again.

If you can take one of you long bolts and grind 3 or 4 grooves in the threads long way to make your own thread chaser/cleaner and run that bolt in and out of every hole and blow out thoroughly again

Use new head bolts each time you pull the heads unless you have arp or something equivalent

 

I know about the tty head bolts. I know about getting the antifreeze and torque sealer crap out of bolt holes. If you noticed at the bottom of the post neither of my questions had anything to do with what you are saying. Thanks for the advise but I've already cleaned the threads throughly. No moisture or crap left in then. Just working on cleaning the lifters out and trying my best to get all the gunk off the cam and what not.

 

Just use a vacuum and a straw taped to the end of the hose to suck out all the coolant mixed with oil that is in the coolant passages,drain the oil,when you put it back together fill it with cheap oil and add motor flush, and then add new oil.then go get the cooling system flushed.

 

I lost a intake gasket on a eArly vortex and filled my engine with coolant before too. I have a good friend who has owned a automotive machine shop for thirty years and he made me flush the engine over and over with diesel gas. It sucked and I probably put close to 10 gals through the motor. Fill up the lifter valley and valve area but don't scrub on stuff to break bits loose just rinse and drain pan rinse drain pan. I cleaned and vacuumed all the Nasty stuff before just like you probably have. When we used to race a alcohol car we would pour diesel into the carb running hard u till it died after each race to keep the alcohol from eating everything. Anyway that was three or four years ago and the truck still runs good so it must not have hurt it. Beware that the count is really hard on bearings and if you haven't all ready you better do it . Mine was still in the truck too and looked like a chocolate milk shake when I first drained the oil. It sucks but the alternative is pulling it and tearing it down. My bosses wife once killed his truck by filling up the crankcase with water when she thought it was running a little hot , she drove it full to the fill hole for 35 miles to their house ! Ha he wasn't to happy though. Good luck

 

Yeah i havent got the heads on yet. I have been cleaning and cleaning, and cleaning the past few weeks. LOL. in the block itself Have ran Tranny fluid threw the lifter ports and in the valley and back behind the timing chain the best i could. It actually did a damn good job off just pulling that crap off and sending it to the crankcase/out the oil pan drain plug. But I know there is still a bunch of crap in there. So are you saying your friend with the shop who made you do diesel flush, are you talking like just like an oil change? like add diesel fuel and start the motor for awhile drain and repeat or what? what was your process exactly. (sorry i want to do this right this time and DO NOT want to have to take these damn heads off again until I can pull the block)

 

no dont run or turn over the engine with that stuff in there! we simple poured in the diesel through the top of the heads and the lifter valley (manifold was off sbc gen1) and i kept the pan on and pluged to catch all the diesel and junk. then drain into waste pan and eventually after i was over it (alot of diesel and time) i pulled the pan and cleaned it up and put it back on. i was paranoid about it so i got everything back together and filled up with oil and cranked the engine for awhile with no ignition so it wouldnt start and changed the oil and filter again! and then i ran it for a few days and changed it again. it really does suck to do but i have a high milage sbc gen1 and i ran it completely full of coolant because when it happened i was close to home and said **** it and kept going. bottom line is your rinsing or washing the inside out the best you can with out disassembling the engine. now maybe the bearing tolerances are such that its just an effort but i trust my buddy hes been doing this his whole life and he acted like it was the only option short of tearing the engine down. rinse look at it, rinse look at it when its clean a few times in a row then thats about it and change the damn oil over and over. it cost me a bunch for oil and filters and i had a few 5 gal buckets full of **** to take to the recycler after and i smelled like diesel for awhile. apperantly coolant is really hard on main and rod bearings and my buddy says he sees alot of bad rods when people continue to use their stuff with coolant in the oil . and rods hanging out the side of the block are bad . maybe call a ls machine shop and ask them too but they will probably tell you to bring in the motor for a rebuild if its high milage or it got really really hot. hope you enjoy smelling like diesel and remember you can use the spent diesel to kill weeds in your sidewalk (if your a hillbilly anyway)

 

10-4 my friend. That you for the details. I'm all about details lol. But yeah I still have the heads off and the hydraulic roller lifters in their trays sitting in oil. They are ready to go in as soon as the head bolt thread holes
Are clean and dry. The only thin is the oil pan. I don't want to pull it but I am afraid if I don't then I will screw my self. And again once I'm done I don't want to have to tear the motor down again until I'm ready to rebuild it and no its not a hi milage motor at all its a crate lm7 with a bigger cane cam hard rods roller rockers trq convrtr etc. It only has 12k mi on it or so. It had a valve stem/ guide seal fail and when I put the head on the 1st time I had some antifreeze in the threads (rookie move) and this milkshake disaster was born. But I'll keep at it thank you again

 

Okay so you didn't say anything at the end of your post but you did at the beginning. Didn't know you knew already what a good way is to clean them.


So did you already know about using an old bolt so you don't have to buy a tool to clean the threads?



If you want to clean out the motor I would put a drain pan under the oil pan with the plug removed and pour cheap engine oil through the block. Flush it out with oil instead of fuel or chemicals. That way the only thing in there is oil.

Run the motor for 20-30 minutes at idle and change the oil again. Putting transmission fluid and diesel and all that **** in the motor is asking for trouble. The gaskets aren't made to work with trans fluid or fuel, they are made to work with motor oil, putting anything else in their can cause the gaskets to go to ****. Besides you don't need the help of other oils and chemicals to flush out water and oil. If you were trying to flush out old caked up oil/contaminants you could add flush agents or what these other guys mentioned but it's still a bad idea. Btw i've been a tech for 18 years, I know these things from experience and watching people mess up things.

 

00pooterSS, yes I did. Read my ORIGINAL post their are 2 questions at the end and that's what I was looking for. But yes I even had someone on anot her thread try to get me to mail him an old bolt for him to grind because I said I didn't have a angle die grinder. Either way moving on

I did get everything cleaned up fairly well (using ATF and than shading it with motor oil) I wouldn't ever run a motor with that **** in though. Sketchy. I got the heads back on and the yella terra roller rockers and **** back in as well. Just gonna continue to resemble the motor per Chilton manual and then do 3 or 5 oil changes until I trust it. Also pulled the water pump and everything is good their. No oil what so ever. So I replaced the gaskets cleaned up mating services and put it back on. Thermo was good as well. I'm not saying. Don't trust you. Or that you have lack of experience. Because if 18 years is how long you've been in the business that means you've been doing it since I was a little lad. Respect. Just doing what I hear 90% of forums suggest and hoping for the best. But thank you for your knowledge sor

 

I read just fine and I read your original post just fine, I got the point the first, second and third time. You stated you made a rookie mistake by not cleaning out the threads, I figured if you were that much of a rookie that you could use all the help you could get. You never stated you knew a good way to clean the threads so I offered advice in a thread you started about needing advice. If you didn't want irrelevant information about fixing the problem(s) maybe you shouldn't have posted about irrelevant problems and only posted the questions you wanted answers to.

Hope that transmission fluid doesn't end up causing you problems, a lot of people will tell you to use ATF but either don't know or forget to mention the harmful things it will do.

Oh, I forgot something else from experience, when water gets in oil it can ruin the bearings and possibly the rings too. Water isn't a good lubricant for engines.

 

ATF is compatible with engine oil, contact with either one will not harm each other's seals.

 

I would flush the motor while the heads are off.

 

Ya no **** water isn't good for engines.... look ***** or whatever your name is why don't you get down off the 10 story tall horse your riding? No one in this thread needs your 18 years of 'I'm right you wrong. I'm smart your dumb' attitude. I didn't feel like I was being disrespectful towards you what so ever. I never said you couldnt read. I didn't because 1. I'm not an *** hole and assume ridiculous things about people. And 2. How in the hell else would we still be having this pointless conversation if you couldn't read.

And 18 years or not your still the first person ever to advise against ATF.... so therefore I care less about what your oh so great "advise "you keep trying to shove down people's throats.

 

I was never once an ******* or on a high horse, I never called you dumb, you said you were a rookie so I gave advice that I thought could be helpful and you replied with a "that's has nothing to do with what I was asking", I get that but why not take it as helpful and be appreciative that someone is taking the time to try to give you as much helpful advice as possible? I had a guy come in one time that said he had put transmission fluid in his engine the last oil change to clean the engine and then he checked over the motor at the next oil change dand he noticed several leaks, I heard from someone else that that could happen previous to that so I assumed it to be true. Maybe it's not, but still why not use an approved engine flush?

Here are two examples I found using a very quick search that say there could be negative effects to using transmission fluid as a flush agent.

http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/forums...&Number=560116

https://au.answers.yahoo.com/questio...7214451AAyDZJ0

 

Found this on another site:

Hmmm, some AT fluids have short lived additives that soften and slightly swell
seals. This is a desireable feature when replacing the ATF in an older
vehicle. This is a major component of most AT "conditioner" additives too. It
would tend to confirm you suspicion of a valve stem seal problem.

George Bonser
gr...@cris.com




So it's out there that people say this about ATF in motor oil. Do as you wish it's your motor. I would highly recommend using a flush agent that is made to be in the engine over ATF.

I've also had a handful of cars come in over the years where someone put engine oil in the brake reservoir and it annihilated the system, you could always tell what they had done the second you removed the reservoir cap, the cap seal would be 2-3 times the original size. So i'm really against putting fluids in places they don't belong.