The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Oil Pan Warning

Hi All,

I recently put a good used 292 out of a 66 c60 in my 66 c20. It ran great! When I changed the oil I added a half quart of Marvel Mystery Oil to help clear out the old sludge and give the lifters a good cleaning out.

On my first highway trip I was about an hour outside of town keeping a watchful eye on the oil pressure when the gauge went to zero. I shut it down and pulled over to find that the oil pan looked like it had black spaghetti coming out of it! The sludge apparently cleared itself out exposing small corrosion pits and thus relieving the motor of its oil.

I had the truck towed home ($$$) and plugged the holes and added oil to find a LOT of noise coming from the motor that only got worse. I ended up putting my spare 78 c20 292 in it (the oil pan looks great!) and it is running fine again.

Lesson learned: Inspect your oil pan very closely on used motors!!!

Wow!
I guess you learned two more things- MMO is a great cleaner, and you should never clean an old engine! I would guess you also plugged up the oil pickup and some of the lifter galleries with the loose sludge.

OMG. I thought the pan looked fine too. Never would have thought there would be rust holes in an oil pan! Sorry to hear about it! It sounded awesome when you brought it by.

I'm driving my 70 c30 w/ 292 to Des Moines and back tomorrow. Hope i don't have any problems.

jc this isnt the 292 i sold you was it

Nope Joe, it was the one from bucket. I hope to rebuild both sometime in the near future. I have an extra pan or two that will have to pass inspection!! :-)

i got 2 more 292s if you need something let me know

sounds like you may have taken out the bearings. The only way I know of to remove any appreciable amount of sludge is to physically remove it. Using MMO, seafoam, diesel fuel, etc. only loosens the large chunks and makes them plug the pickup.

I learned that lesson early and now simply buy a gasket set and physically clean any engine I use. Sometimes I get lucky and only need to lightly clean, other times I am buying a new pickup, oil pump, and spending hours cleaning.

Well, the loss of oil was the root cause of the engine failure, I know that. I was running Rotella 10w30 also which helps break up the sludge. Probably the combination successfully broke up the sludge at highway speeds, exposed the corrosion pits, causing the loss of oil. Looking back, manually cleaning out the bottom end of the engine is cheap insurance. Thanks for all the input!