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First of all, don't panic too much just yet. "Sludge" is a generic word and does not seem to cover the range of oil issues this engine (and apparently others) have these days due to overly-long oil change intervals (perceived to be "green") and various fuel-saving measures such as ultra low friction piston rings and so on.
It seems to me there are two conditions; firsly real "sludge" where the oil basically turns to something the consistency of molasses, then there is a more common situation where the oil is quite healthy but it generates a black crumbly deposit (usually in the camchain area).
It sounds to me like you have the latter, the danger in this being that Saab changed the pickup screen in the sump to be a quite fine mesh, and if the crumbly bits are bad eough it can block the pickup and you'll get no oil - bang. It took off my sump to inspect it all, just for my peace of mind, it was all quite OK in there in the end, but it was nice to do it and know everything was fine. Even DIY'ing, it was not too bad a job, I did it over two days, much of which was cleaning things when I got them apart.
Taking your valve cover off is very easy (don't even need a new gasket in my experience) and will give you what I consider a 'barometer' to the engine condition. Compare it to my valve cover area in the link below, and then look at how my sump was. Chances are you're worrying over nothing.
Most important thing is to make sure your oil pressure switch/light is working correctly. My indie had a car in there which had both bad sludge and a non-functioning light, that engine was real dead.
Cheers
Steve
posted by 59.167.54...
http://www.breganzane.com/saabsludgecheck/
, Sat, 14 Oct 2006 13:40:10
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