My friend Tom picked up a cheap '95 Z28 a couple of days ago and on its way home from the guy he bought it, the engine started spraying coolant and obviously since the coolant was burning, smoke was coming out of the engine compartment.
He drove it directly to my house and I looked at it. Turns out the waterpump was leaking so bad, coolant was actually flowing out of the peephole, not just dripping.

We went and got everything needed for a waterpump replacement from Autozone and started working on it right away.

The car has been pretty much sitting for the last couple of years. There are no records as to what has been done to it as far as maintenance. It has 100K miles and it ran pretty strong yesterday. (I drove it myself to the garage)

My friend decided that we may as well do a full tuneup while we were taking it appart. Then, we decided to pull the intake and also replace all gaskets, hoses, things like that.

Here's what we found today. (note, pictures are high quality and won't really be dialup friendly)

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You can imagine how shocked I was to see all this.

Anyway, since I've never seen something like this before, I'm kind of stuck at this point. Does anyone have any good ideas as to what I should do? I really can't leave the poor engine like that, but how can I clean it?

Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

 

I've seen dirty intake manifolds before, and I was thinking... theyre just metal right? I have a 1000psi pressure cleaner... I was thinking that'd do a fine job as far as cleaning it. I'd think you could use a similar type of thing... at least on the intake. I dunno about in the lifter valley though....

 

Id start just scooping it out!!!!

 

ewwwww, heavy engine cleaner and scrubing brushes, change the oil after about 30 minutes of the car running to get out any engine cleaner or particles from the brisels on those brushes, also you may want to run some Sea foam cleaner in that thing during that 30 minutes the engine is running. That should help things out a bit. When you put oil in it, run some atf fluid mixed in, that will also help clean things up a bit.

 

Water is almost an absrasive, you dont want even the slightest amount of uneven metal on the intake manifold...

 

That looks like the worst case of a varnished motor I've ever seen. Definately is a result of it being run hot (result of your cooling problems). Aside from yanking the motor and rebuilding it (vat the block, etc.) and cleaning it really well, I don't know a thing you can do with it. Try spraying some brake parts cleaner down into the lifter valley and the top of the heads and see if that cleans it up a bit. After about 100 miles of running it afterwards, change the oil. Slap the thing back together and drive it until you decide he'll be better off building a stroker motor with some wild heads and a cam ;D

 

HOLY CRAP!

there isn't much TO do.
you cant really clean it down into the oil pan- it will just clog up oil passages and the pump (if its not already)

WTF? did someone pour sugar in his tank or something!?
I had 110k beaten to **** miles and i was 100x cleaner.

All you have to really do is take the exhuast manifolds off and the trans off (few hours for both) and the whole motor can come out.

you can drain the pan, take a look from under neath and see whts up.
TO me, time is my biggest expence. I'd hate to have to tear it down again.

those rockers look like they are litterally STUCK there.

edit:
you can use soap and a garden hose to clean the intake. soak it in soap water. I did. came out fine. just dry it to the

 

i hope your friend payed close to nothing for that car!

 

You'd be surprised of how well this engine ran. (well, before he knew anything was wrong with it)
He said it went to 145 real quick... He also drove all the way home (300 miles). No hesitations, no stumbles, nothing. I drove it myself before we even did anything to it and it definetely had lots of power.

I was also _REALLY_ surprised of how well this car's opti survived (well, at least to the last time we drove it) all the coolant and mud. It was all covered with coolant pretty much.

 

edited for ya

what would you guys do without me here!

 

lol i didn't wanna be mean!

 

Be extremely careful with that motor. If some of that sludge is disloged and ends up in oil passage its bye bye...

IMO clean up as much as you can now. Put it back together, run some Mobil Drive clean oil in it and change the oil after 100 miles. Repeat that a few times until the oil comes out reasonably clean.

You may also want to try some Auto-Rx(www.auto-rx.com). Its a additive designed to disolve sludge rather than just dislodge it. Normally I shy away from addatives of any kind but that motor needs some serious help.

 

my 180k miles 305 is 100x cleaner than that! geez. that poor lt1.

 

I second the HOLY CRAP term.

like a few people already said, your biggest concern is not letting that crap clog the oil passages up. break out the tooth brushes and elbow grease cuz your gonna be there for a while. I wonder what the oil pan looks like. Have you drained the oil yet?

 

Well I flushed the motor with some autozone (K&W?) engine flush and then drained the oil. It was the blackest oil I've ever seen, but nothing other than oil was coming out of it. (I mean nothing more solid)