I have a 1978 RT 360 Aspen.. i put a new intake and holley carb on it... a lot of sludge was removed on the top and some possibly fell down to the pan as well.. After everything was hooked up, the car ran strong for about two hours. Then i noticed the oil light coming on at IDLE!! at around 2000, there was a knocking from the valve covers... the oil was changed.. and at the correct level!!.. the rods looked like they were kinda dry too. do you think my problem is that the oil pump got clogged by sucking up some of the sludge i cleaned off?!?!

If enough of it was loosened up and dropped into the pan yes! I would pull the pan and have a look around.

Please dont take this the wrong way, but you probably have what you will be having with your breakfast this am and that is TOAST.

On top of the smog motors being junk from the gate and being known for all the sludge build up, it seems your very right you might of knocked enough stuff down into the pickup. If your asking you must have known some went down below.

However on the other hand just as many do with a carb/intake swap and esp if there is a cam swap...all we want to do is go beat the living crap out of it (in your case about two hours of fun) and see how much better it runs. But in reality by your own discription of the buildup your taking an already weak/worn out motor and adding more fuel, air and rpm and flogging it.

You could be going on 50/50 here, possibly plugged up, and more then not you just ran your already tired motor into the ground.


Let us know when you pull it how bad the rod bearings look.

Good luck.

as soon as i get the oil pan off to find out if the pump is clogged or not.. regardless, i might find a 340 to place in there to save the numbers matching motor and rebuild it... but i'm crossing my fingers that unclogging the pump does the trick. oh and today i went to start it, and i had oil pressure at idle AND driving!! there was NO KNOCKING!! but when i opened the secondaries up right outside my house, the pressure dropped and it started knocking again.. it sounds like a clogged pump!!

This is similar to a 3.7L I pulled apart on friday. This was not from high mileage just pure neglect. 50,000 miles on it. We pulled out about 5 pounds of sludge out of each valve cover. Owner said " I may have a rod knock"

I pulled apart an '81 Monte Carlo back in the late 80's for a flat cam at 70,000 miles. The valley had an impression of the underside of the intake and you could not see the rockers when the valve covers came off. The kid did nothing but cruise around drinking and getting high, car was probably never over 55 mph in it's life. I told the kid that he was going to need a new engine soon as all the crud could not be cleaned out unless we pulled the engine out and apart. He said that a buddy of his told him it would be fine and we just changed the cam. It ran for a week and started smoking so bad you couldn't see the car at a stop sign.

He said he changed oil every 7,000 just like the owner's manual said to.

Ok, so heres what happened.... in order to take off the oil pan i had to disconnect the centerlink and the exhaust... i need headers lol!!! i had to take the starter off in order to take the torque converter cover thing off and a mount on the other side! the positive cable wouldnt come off the starter cuz the thread stripped..go figure!!.. i got a new starter! i took all the pan screws out.. the pan dropped, BUT WAIT!! the k- frame was in the way.. so i took the tranny mount off and rasied the tranny to try and raise the motor.. still wouldnt budge!! this is the first time i ever needed to get an engine lift to take a pan off!! i went to go disconnect the Pass. Side motor mount but the bolt got stuck and then whoomp.. it mushroomed!! ARGGG.. no biggy.. FINALLY i got the motor up and the pan off... it wasn't as dirty, but a little sludge was in the pick up which would be enough to block it!! I cleaned that out AND put a new oil pump in just in case. I put everything back together. started her right up and my oil pressure was back to normal!! phew!! no Knocking!! bearings were still good.. it's a good thing i started working on it when i did... so running 15 miles with a slight tick ONLY at 2000rpm and 3 miles with a knock driving slowly home, bearings still looked good...and motor wasnt TOAST.. close.. "slightly brown but scrapped off with a knife"!... i still need to find a good 340!! maybe Carlisle this year!!

Glad to hear it. But, whats with the obsession to have a 340?

Glad it wasn't worse.
Just a point to ponder though. If you want that engine to last a while longer I would get rid of that Edelbrock air cleaner. All those things do is filter out the big stuff. Not a big fan of those things unless they have changed them.

well the obsession with a 340 is simple!! i have a 72 Duster as well!!, which would need a motor.. so if the Aspen doesn't get it.. the Duster does!!! and the edelbrock air cleaner.. it's junk i know!! it's all i could get to fit.. i need to find a spacer to clear my linkage for my other one!

Glad you got it running again. BTW, 340`s are cool engines. I have two of them. Mike