Cleaning Engine Oil Passages

[SBJ]

What's up everyone? This isn't a D21 question but there are a lot of very knowledgeable folks on here and I thought I would ask: how should I go about cleaning the oil passages on an engine block?

The engine in question is a GM ecoshit 2.2 out of a 2004 chevy malibu. The car has been sitting out in the yard for over a year at my new place of residence and my landlord is wondering if it's possible to get it running again. It looks like it had a bad head gasket and was driven until it wouldn't go anymore. Personally I doubt it's even worth it to try and fix - the car was severely neglected and was a hunk of shit when it was brand new.

Here's a shot of the oil filter. Not good. I can see a fair amount of this nasty goop in the oil passages that are visible.



I will need to clean the coolant passages too (I am guessing once it started overheating they put the wrong kind of coolant in, they did everything else wrong lol). I was going to coat the cylinder walls and bottom end in old motor oil so they won't flash rust then roll the engine stand out into the yard and flush oil all the coolant passages (and the radiator) with the garden hose. For the oil passages I was going to use brake cleaner and a lot of compressed air.

My question is, should I be taking the bottom end apart to clean out the passages in the crank and the rod bearings? The head is from another car, so those should all be good. I would rather not have to re-ring it when I am done (the crank turns over smoothly and I can still see the cross hatch patterns on the cylinder walls) but I would also hate to go through all this work just to have it spin a bearing or throw a rod when it's back together. This car was owned by a junkie and it shows (there must be an entire army of them here in S. King county).

[Scott Turchin]

Diesel is your friend....followed by brake cleaner.
If it were running I'd say put a quart in and run it for 15 mins then tear the engine down.

Otherwise hot tank it.