sorry just read you were going to apply the seafoam threw the oil . you shouldnt see that amount of smoke when you do it that way, when you apply it threw the fuel and vacuum lines then you get the smoke. just wanted to clear that statment up before some one jumped down my throat about it .

 

I visited with the guys at the local BG Products warehouse. Though they have a product for specifically de-sludging these engines, they recommended instead their BG 109 Compression Performance Restoration product. So I dumped one of those into the crankcase and started it. Once it reached OT it started rattling like the video in my first post. I let it run an additional 10 minutes per the instructions, shut it down and drained the crankcase and let it drain for about 3 hours. Changed the filter (who the hell designed THAT filter location?) and refilled with Castrol 10W-30 dino. Started the car and let it reach OT. No rattling. Lifter noise is more even across all cylinders and once I reinstalled the plastic cover and closed the hood, it is completely quiet.

Before the BG I could see inside the valve cover that very little oil was moving back drown into the lifter galleys. After the treatment and oil change, I can now see quite a bit of oil moving inside the valve cover. Clearly, I had some blockage in the oil passages and I suspect the overheating contributed somehow. I plan on running the oil for 1000 miles and doing it again. BG recommended I run their BG MOA periodically to prevent sludge buildup, but who knows. I have all the maintenance records and the car had Mobil1 synthetic oil changes every 5k miles for its entire 85k mile life, and we see what that got us. So what do all of you recommend for oil?

Thanks for the advice and help.

 

im not 100% positive on this but i was once told that once you are running synthetic oil in your engine that you cant change back to regular oil. it may be false or some oil doesnt matter but i was told that by a couple mechanics so it stuck in my head. i would def stick with synthetic i run mobile one 10-30 synthetic and change it every 5000 . and good job getting rid of your sludge problem. that actually fixed it. all the lucas would have done was put a bandaid on it and just oil up the lifters and eventually ( after quite some time ) it would have came back . and yes the oil filter location is a weird one. but not as bad as a subaru sti its actually between the exhaust mani because its a boxter engine and it sits sideways its horrid to change the oil on that thing . everytime no matter how careful i am i end up spilling oil on the exhaust and it burns off the oil for a couple of days. so in my eyes the a4 isnt that bad lol. but good job its a common problem for most of us with oil sludge.