Old wives tale. If maintained correctly you should never have a sludge
problem. I operate a television news live truck (97 Ford E-350 5.4L)and
we have them idling sometimes up to 20 hours straight. The oil gets
changed every 2500 miles and tranny gets serviced about every 15K
miles. The unit I operate has almost 90K miles on it and the engine is
sludge and leak free and has never broken down. This would be
considered EXTREME(very!) duty in the owners manual. These trucks do
get quite a bit of highway mileage on them so carbon build up doesn't
seem to be much of an issue either.
If you idle your vehicle alot, be sure to change the oil more
frequently and make sure you hit the highway every so often to blow out
the moisture and carbon build up.
Al
Ronald Wong wrote:
>
> By the way, it's not good to let your engine sit there and idle like that.
> Sludge city!
>
> Ron
> 00 PB SLT QC 4X2 5.9 46RE 3.92 LSD
> For modifications see my DML Profile (URL follows)
> http://www.twistedbits.net/WWWProfile/dakota/Kw9pV1EkFeOYY
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-dakota-truck@buffnet.net
> [mailto:owner-dakota-truck@buffnet.net]On Behalf Of Will Coughlin
> Sent: Thursday, March 29, 2001 12:05 PM
> To: dakota-truck@buffnet.net
> Subject: DML: 4.7L oil pressure??????
>
> Ok, I got real nervous this morning because the guage in my truck ventured
> to the left side of the mid/40 mark for the first time! Conditions were
> this: 2000 4.7L,12,157 miles,valvoline all-climate 5W-30 oil,50* ambient
> temp, truck had been started cold, allowed to idle till temperature got up,
> driven 6-7 miles then stopped and left it idling for approx. 30 min. while I
> was fixing my buddy's car('97 30th anniversary Camaro
> SS-LT1,4L60E,3.73/eaton posi,mass-air,headers,custom exhaust,power
> programmer,etc. Dak content: I'm driving it for a few days while I'm working
> on my truck!!). I got back in the truck, and the needle was just barely to
> the left enough to see the middle mark. Is this something to be worried
> about? Do any other 4.7L owners experience this? It worries me since it's
> never done it before, even under identical conditions? I've never let the
> RPM's get high at all while it is cold, which could be a cause of excess
> wear, so I didn't think that would be a cause. The truck has always held
> about 60-90 lbs of pressure. With the a/c compressor running(idled up), it
> never falls below about 60 at an idle. While going down the road, it will
> hold approx 90 lbs easy. I've always felt pretty good about the pressure it
> held until this happened.
>
> Will Coughlin willcoughlin@hotmail.com
> '00 reg.cab,2wd,4.7L/hd5-spd/3.92sg(9.25")
> http://www.geocities.com/willcoughlin/index.html
>
> _________________________________________________________________
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