There is an old saying: those who don't read history are doomed to repeat it's mistakes. This thread is along those lines....
(Discussion forums have many advantages but they also tend to bury valuable information as time passes. Thus we sometimes end up reinventing the wheel. )
If you have a TBird with a motor of unknown age, the suggestion here is to get the oil pan off and clean the pickup screen. It might save you a blown motor!
In the case of both Alexander and I, at different times, our pickup screens were totally clogged with ancient oil deposits. This is easily seen :
In his case, while idling, he snapped a connecting rod and ruined his motor. This is discussed at
while in my case, in 2004, I benefitted from his experience and cleaned mine (shown in the photo above) before doing any damage. (see thread at http://www.squarebirds.org/vbulletin...=pickup+screen)
If you are interested, we can discuss getting the oil pan off. Removing the screen is easy; all kinds of things will remove the deposits. Others will argue that a new oil pump is a good idea at that point. Your choice. Bottom line: there is only one way to know for certain: check!
Now you might well get the pan off, peek up at the screen and it's clean as a whistle. You might then curse me for leading you down this path of a couple hours of work that lead nowhere. Except for one thing: now you know.
From a different person's experience, do not think you can take care of this with modern detergent oils. This person had a Chevy motor built around 1960. Lots of oil deposits like in my screen. Cleaned most of them but then filled it with modern oil. 600 miles or so later his main and rod bearings were worn out as all kinds of stuff had gotten loose and ground the **** out of the soft bearings.
In any case, here is a photo of the same screen, but cleaned:
happy motoring!
John
(Discussion forums have many advantages but they also tend to bury valuable information as time passes. Thus we sometimes end up reinventing the wheel. )
If you have a TBird with a motor of unknown age, the suggestion here is to get the oil pan off and clean the pickup screen. It might save you a blown motor!
In the case of both Alexander and I, at different times, our pickup screens were totally clogged with ancient oil deposits. This is easily seen :
In his case, while idling, he snapped a connecting rod and ruined his motor. This is discussed at
while in my case, in 2004, I benefitted from his experience and cleaned mine (shown in the photo above) before doing any damage. (see thread at http://www.squarebirds.org/vbulletin...=pickup+screen)
If you are interested, we can discuss getting the oil pan off. Removing the screen is easy; all kinds of things will remove the deposits. Others will argue that a new oil pump is a good idea at that point. Your choice. Bottom line: there is only one way to know for certain: check!
Now you might well get the pan off, peek up at the screen and it's clean as a whistle. You might then curse me for leading you down this path of a couple hours of work that lead nowhere. Except for one thing: now you know.
From a different person's experience, do not think you can take care of this with modern detergent oils. This person had a Chevy motor built around 1960. Lots of oil deposits like in my screen. Cleaned most of them but then filled it with modern oil. 600 miles or so later his main and rod bearings were worn out as all kinds of stuff had gotten loose and ground the **** out of the soft bearings.
In any case, here is a photo of the same screen, but cleaned:
happy motoring!
John
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