Hey guys,

So I have a 1.4 8v active sport on 110,000 miles that im going to be doing an oil change and oil filter change on in the next couple of days.

I bought it at 100,000 miles as spares or repairs with no service history. Have no idea how long its been since anything has been done on it. Been doing some research on engine flushers but cant find a convincing verdict. What do you guys think? I hear that it could potentially just move sludge to parts of the system that could cause major issues? Any truth to that?

Cheers
Tom

Just change the oil / filter.

Choose a good oil brand and stay away from these products.

If it was mine I'd go with new oil (of the right grade) and filter and then change it again in a few thousand miles


Sounds like a complete service might be a good thing, don't forget the fuel filter. Also at that mileage has the cambelt been done?

Cheers for the advice guys, I'll do that. Bought new fuel/air filters and a new set of sparkplugs too so will do all that too. Think the cambelt was changed at 77,000 miles. Will check that though.

That has to be a good start. Then see how it feels

Hi guys. I know that TouTube is full of info about engine flush, many people say no, some of them yes and so on... Overal issue will be possibility of clogging oil passages to VVT pulley. What would you do in my case? Unknown car history but a lot of oil sludge on camshaft, in head and so on...
And now questions + discussion. Is good thing this?
1, add flush additive like STP, run vehicle 1 hour and drain whol oil
2, change filter
3, add 2.5 liter of diesel and run 10 minutes idle
4, flush it away, change filter
5, add cheap oil 2.5 diesel and idle 10 min
6, fulsh away, add final filter and add 2.5L original oil
7, clean VVT solenoid nets

May I clogg some oil passage? I saw all passages but they are not so tiny az I thought. What can happen? Could it clogg oil inlet basket (net) to oil pump for example?
You know what I wanna do - to clean valves under buckets without dismatling whole cylinder head to make sure that cylinder head is completely clean and it's not cause of high ticking noise on hot idle

I have,for the past 30 odd years run some type of flush through all the cars I've worked on.Inc both my own 2 litre turbo vectra's. And the vectra gets done every 6 months,cheaper than a turbo.

My view is don't use flushing oil, additives or diesel in the engine. If you want to clean out the engine, change the oil and filter using non synthetic (cheaper) oil. Run the car for a hundred miles or so making sure to get it well warmed up and cover the whole rev range when warm.
Then change the oil and filter using a quality oil.

Robert G8RPI.

G8rpi - and does non synthetic oil remove sludge? Maybe some pictures could help... on walls of valve cover was sludge 0.5cm thick. I removed with screwdriver what I could at home. Some sludge is also around cylinder head mounting bolts. I didnt remove camshaft so I cannot say if there is also sludge under buckets. I'm only thinking what else can cause that ticking noise on hot engine, because almost everyting has been checked - valve clearances, compression and so on. So I think if there should be sludge under buckets and while one concrete valve is getting hot, it's also longer and longer, but also thicker and thicker. So I thought if valve isnt stucked in valve guide while hot and that causes ticking. Thats why I want to clean cylinder head properly to be sure, but also doesnt want to dismantle half of engine to get buckets out. Car is used daily, and is running well

Rado77 said:

... Car is used daily, and is running well

Click to expand...

So stop tampering it and turn you radio on ...

Yes you are right Bernie The best is that I don't listen it inside car at all Only when Im outside and idle is hot. OK guys, I forget this "flushing" idea. I'll only change oil after few months, maybe I can use some cheap oil to remove all old from there

Change oil & filter 6 monthly, forget about any flushes or additives. Any car manufacturer will tell you this. Been discussed on here many times. Well known money maker that is just not needed.

I know all this , but because previous owner baked whole engine and there was a lot of sludge, and also burned hard oil pieces (those are removed), I asked how to clean whole oil sludge from camshaft area. Because I changed original oil twice (1st directly after buying car, 2nd after 3 months). 2nd oil is there appr. 6 months, but when I removed calve cover 2 weeks ago, oil sludge was still there, on some places 0.5cm thick. So it looks that simple changing original oil each 6 months doesn't clean old sludge.
Of course when I have new car and changing oil once a year (each 10 thousands km), there should be absolutely no sludge...but on this car it's not my case, because previous owner cooked engine.
When original FIAT service measured valve clearances and removed most of hard baked oil pieces from camshaft area, they recommended engine flush. I told them that Im afraid of colgging oil passages, but they said that it should be OK to do it...

Get a long handled screwdriver and place the tip on the rocker cover with the handle against your ear while the engine is running. You will easily be able to identify the location of that ticking noise. It might then motivate you to take the cam off and see what is causing it.

I used sthetoscope for this, source sound is located in the middle of cylinder head from area of head gasket, maube little bit higher. 1st I thought it could be injector but I uplugged them one by one on idle but ticking was still there. And the sane with unplugging spark cables one by one. As I said, car is used daily and I dont want to dismantle everything, timing belt and so on...I also have no garage, no tools and so on. Overal - ticking is quiet than before and I did nothing except oil chages and clearing camshaft area from sludge and ****. I think that there really could be sludge under bucket and it's pressing whole bucket with shimm up. And whole camshaft lobe is pushing on shimm, it's goind down a litle bit and hits the tip of valve. And thats that ticking. Thats why I asked my initial question how to properly remove all oil sludge withou dismantling parts

I was wondering if all of that varnish might be responsible for something or other. With the hydraulic lifter/tappets that varnish can prevent the tappet valves from closing and you would think it would easily get eroded by the movement of the valve.

My injectors were noisy. I got an ebay 40 euro injector rail with old injectors and it made a big difference. I had been thinking about providing sound insulation but I can live with it now.

On your gasoline smell thread you mention the ticking cycles 16 times on 2 off and you processed that sound recorded from your phone. Did you use an audio tool to process the sound to precisely time the cycle? If that ticking is an unfailing constant 16 times on and 2 off how can it be created by only a mechanical fault? Bernie suggested it was electronically created via the ECU/VVT.


Can you provide the audio here please?

Hi Judderbar,

unfortunately I don't have that audio file anymore. I used Goldwave to measure it, analysed each second of recorded sound and counted ticking. Mentioned "cyclic sounds" is something "different". Number of ticks per second is still the same (appr. 5 - 5,2 per second, this was measured via GoldWave), but yes, overal it tickts 16 times, and then sound disappear for 2-3 seconds, and again and again. I checked VVT angle measurement via ECU/MES and VVT is still in 0 position during idle, so this is ok. I also checked whole situation when I unplugged VVT solenoid - no change
Situation is more complicated because previous owner did general head repair - I found that (at least) 1 exhaust valve on 3rd cylinder was changed to new one - is shiny and all other 3 ex valves are black by carbon. But what else he did...I don't know...maybe he really used new valve from different material and once it heats up, it changes it's lenght a little bit more than usual...hard to say. I'm still using "light" methods how to make things better. Overal - my each intervention makes engine better. When I bought it, when I pressed gas pedal behind half of it's way, engine started to make strange bass sound. Reason was clogged VVT solenoid with burned oil. Cleaned -> fixed -> acceleration better. Then I had exhaust leak sound, I fixed wried exhaust manifold (make flatness + new gasket) and fixed another gasket behind CAT, there was leak too. Then I cleaned valve cover from old debris of burned oil and sludge + cleaned oil passages in head and cover -> camshaft stopped to squeak. So step by step, engine is better, smoother and more quiet.
So last thing for me is to try to clean engine inside completely (that's why I asked for flushing possibility) or how to do it by best way and that's all. Engine starts perfect, runs perfect, and ticking on hot idle is audible only outside car. But - it's almost 2 times weaker than before ! So progress is also in this area

OK try this at your own peril:devil: back in the day 60s/70s some old engines which were very much neglected on services, an old trick to get all the crap out, we used diesel, yep, drain old oil out pour in diesel to the same mark as the engine oil, start up & a wee rev or two & let tick over for 20mins or so, then use flushing oil, then fill up with correct oil changing the filter a couple of times.

Now this was done on old engines & it did work, try this at your own risk as I said.

Want to get rid of all that crap ? Pull engine off the car, tear it apart, clean it thouroughly and check if every part is under tolerance ? Maybe someone did a mystake on that engine in the past so you would find out... but is that worth ? (the car runs fine ...)

BRs, Bernie