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I suspect that my 1993 9000 Turbo with 102k has at least a partially clogged oil screen, due to a fair amount of lifter noise from the engine (at the "front" end of valve train). Oil has been changed somewhat erratically over the years.
I don't have time to pull the oil pan myself (I'm about to move from the US to Hong Kong), and I know the dealer will charge a fortune, but I want one of my daughters to use this car.
So, would it be insane to:
1) drain the oil
2) pour about 5-6 quarts of mineral spirits, kerosene, or ATF into the sump through the oil filler hole?
3) let the fluid sit in the sump for a couple of days, WITHOUT running the engine, hopefully dissolving some of the (presumed) deposits on the intake screen, which then would theoretically fall to the bottom of the oil pan? (If you toss a bunch of dirty nuts and bolts, for example, into a container of mineral spirits, when you come back the next day, a lot of the stuff will have dissolved off the dirty parts and sunk to the bottom without any further human intervention).
4) occasionally rock or bounce the car (again, without running engine) to create some sloshing action in the sump -- again, in hopes of washing debris off the intake screen.
5) drain the sump, with the solvent (one hopes) bringing a lot of nasty debris with it.
6) repeat the process once more, hopefully to break loose more stuff from the screen, or at a minimum to wash more particulates and other junk out the drain hole, so they don't promptly get sucked onto the screen again.
7) after the second batch of solvent has drained thoroughly, install new oil filter and add fresh oil.
The only place that the solvent would have been introduced would be the oil pan ... it would not have circulated throughout the engine. And any stuff broken loose by the solven would not have circulated through the engine (or potentially clogged the oil filter) -- it would have stayed in the oil pan.
Comments? And if this isn't a crazy idea, which solvent would be best? I lean toward mineral spirits, but I know that ATF is high in detergents and is pretty good at attacking carbon (for example, for Mazda rotary engines with sticking seals at the rotor tips, a common fix is to dump ATF into the combustion chambers through the spark plug holes and let it work away at the carbon for a few days, turning the engine occasionally to make sure all the internals are getting soaked.)
Thanks for any feedback.
--Graham
posted by 24.250.118...
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