How serious is sludge in a petrol engine? (3.6L Chrysler Pentastar)

>>16578374
>am I just counting down to total engine failure now?

It's a Chrysler, you always ar

The only way to truly get rid of it is to take out the engine, tear the whole thing down, clean EVERYTHING, rebuild it, put it back in the car, replace all oiling system components and keep up with your oil changes in the future.

Basically you're screwed unless you're willing to put in a new engine.

>>16578374
don't drive your minivan like its a sports car?

Would adding plenty of that engine flush additive with fresh oil + filter, then changing the filter after like 250 miles then changing the oil+filter again at something like 1000 miles be a good idea for a heavily built up sludgey engine? Maybe even halve the oil change interval after the fresh oil and filter go in again?

>>16579468
4 quarts of oil 1 quart of trans fluid. Run it for 10 minutes and drain it

>>16580094
Do this at night it's gonna smoke

File: sludge.jpg (36KB, 480x360px) Image search: [Google]

36KB, 480x360px

>>16578374
If you are this point your engine is pretty much fucked. It will run but you will probably eat oil and it will never be ok.

>>16578374
>Is it possible to recover from oil sludge

I would clean using only engine oil. ATF can cause seals or gaskets to swell. It the car uses 10W30, I would use 5W20 to flush it. The thinner oil will get thick from sludge soon enough. Bah humbug.

From the sludge in your posted picture, sure, it is recoverable. At home, I'd jack stand it, then go through at least four oil changes along with cheap filters. The fifth change would be to full synthetic pennzoil platinum ULTRA with a fram ultra oil filter. PenPlatUlt has the most detergents for cleaning purposes and fram ultra filter has metal mesh in the pleats to prevent holing from deposits causing pressure.

1. First I would drain out the thick oil and replace the filter. Then put in the cheapest oil which is probably supertec 5w20 from walmart. The 5 quart jugs are really cheap. I use oil first because I want to dilute the sludgy oil and get that out before trying to break down thick sludge. That way, I'm hoping no passage will plug up because the oil on the 2nd pass is less sludgey. Idle the engine for several minutes and stop. Check jack stands carefully.

2. Yet again check car and jack stands to be sure car is stable and stands won't collapse or slide. Change oil and filter. Add 2nd round of supertec 5w20 (not that they have any that is thinner). Run engine for a few minutes.

3. Repeat. Idle for at least 5 minutes since by now you want more sludge to dissolve in the hot oil.

4. Repeat using idle of at least 5 minutes. Oil should look better by now?

5. Last of your supertec 5w20 cheap oils.

6. Now you will use your pennzoil platinum ultra oil and the fram ultra filter. You can now tighten the oil drain plug to the proper amount. You only torqued it lightly before since you were going to remove the plug again soon.

As you drive, keep an eye out on how dark the oil is when you swipe the dipstick on a paper towel. You'll be changing the oil sooner than normal.

>>16581180
any diesel will have even more detergents. and it's usually cheap too.
personally i'd use the thinnest cheapest "diesel" oil to flush with (probably rotella)
and then a good synthetic diesel oil to for the next two "regular" changes. after that whatever you want. or keep using the diesel oil and changing it once it's dark (it'll get nasty very quickly) it actually cleaned the underside of my valvecover. truckfags go 10-20k on an oil change so it's got crazy amount of detergents to keep all that clean.
you could even get an oil filter relocation kit, and run a big for or diesel filter. it'll clean the gunk out of the oil stupid good.