Toyota Repair: Repairing Sludge Engine, toyota camry, engine failure

Question
I have a 1994 Toyota Camry Le V6 130,000 Mi with a sludged up engine, (I've been told by my mechanic) Do you know If I can salvage this engine by rebuilding it, changing all Rods, Pistons, Rings, and cleaning it out before.  The engine did not sound abnormal before it stopped on me 70 Mi away from my home.

Also do you know what else, if not the sludge that could/may be the cause of the engine Failure?

The car had been running like brand new, with no noises, or symptoms of anything, just died.


thanks,


Answer
Yes the engine is still rebuildable. You will have to really strip it down and have the block hot tanked to clean out the sludge and have the heads cleaned out to clean out the oil ports. Toyota has a solution to clean out the engine. This kind of problem has been reported quite often on the newer engines. This is only a suggested idea, up to you if you want to try: Drain the oil, buy a couple of cheap oil filters and run the engine with diesel fuel instead of oil (only using one quart of oil for lubrication). Start the engine if possible and let it idle till it warms up. Shut off the engine and perform another oil change using the diesel fuel again and a new filter.   You will have to perform this task a few time but if you are willing to take the time to do this and bear the expense, you may just save yourself an engine rebuild. As far as what caused it, I can only guess that you are making short trips and/or not changing your oil often enough. Engines need a good run on a highway to warm up and let the oil heat up to flow thru the oil valleys and ports.