engine and drivetrain head gasket blew- advice on cleaning inside block?

[tjn]

I have a 1976 with a blown headgasket, that had been sitting for a while... I took the head off tonight and there is alot of crud both in the head and in the block holes... I have never seen such sludge/crud before- the oil is pure white and the consistency of paste. I am hoping the engine is salvageable at this point. I plan on taking the head to a shop to get cleaned/checked.. but hoping I can use the block as it is... (is this okay?). Does any one know how I can clean the sludge out of the block... in all the deep recesses?

Thanks for any help you can give!

[jerry]

i'll take a stab:

i'm assuming that you want to avoid removing the engine from the engine bay.

by now you have the head off, so you have a relatively clear shot of the engine.

i would remove the oil pan and all the freeze plugs and the drain plug on the exhaust side of the block and the oil filter housing then blast the engine with high pressure water and/or steam in all the nooks and crannies. blast water on the underside, too. yes, including where the crank is since you've already got water-contaminated oil anyways.

you will probably need to raise your engine and suspend it above the subframe to get the oil pan out.

once you're convinced all the crud is out to your satisfaction dry the internals as best as possible. use air compressor if available and/or blow dryer. as an extra precaution, you can spray ethanol or methonol to displace any residual water. then spray cranks, bearings and cylinder walls timing chain etc., with oil and rotate.

inspect cylinder walls for pitting.

reassemble and cross your fingers.

[Guest Anonymous]

You could completely disassemble the engine, clean it and replace everything that is not up to spec. Or, if everything seemed fine prior to the gasket failure, you could do the usual valve job, head resurfacing and reassembly. There are countless posts about cleaning and prepping the block prior to attachment of the head.

Please consult the archives. Your issue has been addressed many many times.

[tjn]

Thanks Jerry and Chas... that's the info I needed before moving on with the car- greatly appreciated.

BTW- I did do an archive search, but came up empty (tried several key words/combinations on 'cleaning block').

[TobyB]

Actually, if you keep crud out of the water jacket as best you can,

just get as much out as you can, put the new head on

(clean up that sealing surface well!)

and oil and water everything up and go.

THen change the oil (hot) and filter after the first good drive,

and the coolant, too.

Then do another 100 miles, bring it in hot,

and do the oil one last time.

The only things that can hurt it are coolant (water, to a lesser extent)

in the oil and crud in the oil passages. That milky goo will clear itself

pretty quickly with heat and oil changes, and a bit of oil in the coolant

never hurt anything, as long as it's not so much as to sludge up the radiator.

Coolant will eat the bearings relatively quickly, so you don't want it to

stay in the oil...

t