I bought this engine last year, and they guy was having issues with oil pressure. I stored it and have just started to mess with it. I can't believe how filthy it is. Some of the pushrods are actually ground down from where they contact the rocker arms. I briefly looked at a rocker arm last night and it looks like I will need those too. I was sort of surprised that the bearings and crank didn't look too bad. There was sludge in the valley between the lifters about 3/4 of an inch thick. The oil rings were literally packed with sludge. My plan is for a budget build twin turbo setup for a Chevelle that I have had for 25 years.

This engine was out of a 2009 2500 with 90K on it.

 

Wow. Thats ugly!

Amazing it still ran ok.

 

Yeah, it really didn't run good, that's why he pulled it. The oil pressure was dropping sporadically. I bet the oil pump relief was sticking among other problems.

 

wow...even a crappy oil will do better than that if changed enough. whoever had this motor just didn't change it at all. I've taken synthetic 18,000 miles and poured out clean oil.

 

The whole inside of the engine had a coating like what you see at the bottom of the cylinders. I literally scraped it off all the smooth surfaces with a razor blade(like all the main caps).

 

I think you have to run an engine without coolant more than once to get the oil to turn to tar that thick.

 

^^^Hmm. I wonder if that's what happened? I don't personally know they guy that owned the engine, but I know his mechanic. I will have to ask him if it was ever low.

 

That's just nasty.

 

First time I've seen the tip of a stock pushrod wear like that, thanks for sharing

 

All mine were like that on my 5.3 from JY with 80000 miles on it. Plus motor was spotless inside. I just figured all pushrods wore like that over time.