Hello PRV specialists,

My '80 Bertone 262C has been sitting for the last few years, and needless to say, is not running very well. It starts ok, but then runs very rough with a heavy knocking and lots of smoke. The oil light also flickers on constantly and the car excelerates rather sluggishly. I was told by an ex-Volvo mechanic that the oil pressure is very low and that basically the engine is bad. The interesting thing is that before it sat around it was running pretty good. I am conjecturing that the oil has become gunked up and is clogging the passageways inside the engine thereby causing some cam starvation and knocking. Of course, this is a sure way to cam and/or engine failure, so I am not running it much at all. It just want to find out if there is some way for me to salvage the engine- maybe by clearing out the gunk. I did change the oil a little while ago so it is clean, and it was less than 3000 miles before that when the oil was changed. Actually it has only been driven about 3000 miles in last 5 years. Anyway, one mechanic suggested that I could possibly clean it out by emptying the oil and adding ATF fluid, only letting it idle, and then drain it. This might clean it well enough to clear the gunk. I was told also to possibly drop the pan and see if the oil pick up tube is blocked, and if it is do some physical cleaning. Also, the oil pump may be bad.

So, long story short, might you pundits have any thoughts or suggestions as to what I might do? Are there any other flushing products you would recommend or other ways of cleaning out the engine/ addressing the knocking/ low oil pressure? I want to salvage this engine for now, if I can, because I don't have much cash, but later I would like to swap in a high performance V8 or turbo V6 if I can get the rust issues addressed. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Sincerely,
Mrkanda Fitch