ivangene

you might be on to something... battery maintainer and oil presure keeper upper

sandersd

When I do that kinda' thing, I'll pull the motor and go thru it, upgrade and replace wear items and do a complete inspection. I'd hate to do that sorta' thing thru the rear deck opening.

Like refreshing a race motor after so many hours.

I picked up the car and it sounds fine although the dealer said he had to jump start it this morning. I guess it's about time for a new battery: the old one has been in there about three years. I also picked up a filter so this weekend I'll change the oil.

I got my baby back, baby back, baby back. I got my baby back, baby back...

sandersd

$99.95 - But wait, that's not all. If you order right now...

ivangene

so here are the lifte pics...

This is a 60k mile 03' C4 (IIRC)
So the lifters have been taken apart to discover what causes them to stick - you can see the gouges in the side of the center (variocam Plus) section - good reason to change your filter more than every other oil change - you can see the top surface is shiny indicating that it has worn - the hardest area is the surface and once it wears a little, the wear rate increases. Once the top begins to "mushroom" it doesnt take much to cause the parts to stick together (I found it to be <0.0005" and found parts with 0.002" interfierance.. so clearly some force is "unsticking them" until the point that is no longer possible)

anyhow... I have taken several of these apart, very cool little assemblies and I have a "working model" that you can go play with if you stop in at my indy shop... it is fun and helps explain how this works because you can actuate it like it is in the car - cool stuff

the lifters wear out prematurly on some cars - my guess is heat from poor oil, poor oil change intervals, using the filter too long, lugging the motor, I dont know.... any number of other factors...maybe they were just not heat treated right at the factory (though that doesnt seem too likely)
soaking them in any magic oil aint gonna fix this, might fix some of the debris....but not this

RPMulli

I've used Seafoam in my intake before. I hear you can add it to your oil and run your car for a bit to clean out all the gunk. I don't think its much different than kerosene...

sandersd

Interesting pics. Thanks for sharing. Something else that should be closely inspected and probably replaced at a convenient opportunity as a wear item.

Pac996

Probably just a mouse crawled up the exhaust past an open exhaust port vavle and slept in the piston cylinder. Everything will be back to normal after all the bones and fir get spit out

Next time I'm out and about for a year besides fuel stabilizer and new oil for the car to sit with I'm using exhaust plugs. I still don't like the way the injectors sit with fuel drying up in them gumming things up. The you have a whole fuel rail of gummy stuff to ram past the injectors.

You might try some injector cleaner. It could just be the few days gave the gunk in their a little extra chance to harden more and jam things up. Injectors are more complex than just a needle valve and opening. Some of them are like a maze of channels with all of them easy to foul up.

Jake Raby

NO DO NOT DO THIS!!

The M96 engine is a lot different than others that respond well to engine flushes.. Why? Because the valve train is at the end of the secondary oiling system and because the lifters only have one hole in their body to fill with.

This means that when flushing the engine all the debris from elsewhere in the engine goes directly to the lifters!! To make the issue worse the lifters only have one hole in the body, so the debris enters the lifter and can't be removed.

I have experienced this on many occasions with the M96. If the lifters are dirty they must be removed and disassembled to be cleaned correctly. With any engine flush you are just further contaminating the lifters with all the other crap that the flush freed up inside the engine.

bkjwhipple

Thanks for clarifying, I am glad I didn't use it, and hope I didn't cause others to.

ivangene

YUP, my guess is that the oill in your lfters is the same oil the car left the factory with no matter how many times its been changed - The is NO WAY for the oil to get out - seriouosly

Byprodriver

Where there's a will there's a way!

Pac996

An old friend that was a diesel mechanic in his younger years when I met him told me about a trick he used for freshening up an engine that pisses him off being jacked up. He'd put diesel in the sump and crank the engine through for a while to flush it out. His reasoning was the diesel is a light oil which it is and it cleans while it's at it. Doing this I'd imagine might work old oil out of the lifters. I am not sure if dry cranking the engine would get the lifter to collapse and empty the old out before going to a sump of diesel. That would be the ideal condition to then have diesel enter which would even more flush the lifters of old oil when dry cranking a little after the diesel. Of course when you have the option of a new crate motor in a military shop it helps. I think he was hand cranking the engines with the glow plugs out so that it was easy cranking by hand. I'm sure if I were doing it I'd hand crank with the plugs out flushing and reinstalling the synthetic oil so that the intial start up doesn't have the diesel as the base of lubrication. But we are talking about spending a few hundred in synthetic oil to just flush the diesel out before starting

DreamCarrera

Pac, where do you come up with this stuff?

I have to admit, I am sometimes very entertained by reading your posts.

ivangene

Pac, I have also heard of that (from my father) but never did it or saw it done...

I have however poured water down the carburator on V6 and V8 motors - the theory there is the water turns to steam in the cumpusion chamber and steam cleans the pictons and carbon build up... I have done that on several of my own older chevy trucks, (pre cat converter years)

RPMulli

Thanks for the info..