Well, now that have finished cleaning the engine in my '89 740Ti, I reinspected the cam and valve train by peering in through the oil filler and see brown varnish on everything -- including the cam wear surfaces.

So, I will pull of the valve cover and try to inspect further and clean manually for starters.

I plan to begin with some sort of brake cleaner of carb cleaner, then maybe kerosene or petroleum based cleaner.

I am not concerned about what gets into the crankcase because I'll be dropping the old oil and using some cleanser with new synthetic for a short cleaning period anyway.

Maybe I'll even use an injector cleaner like STP to wash down the cam and valve train.

Anyone see any big problems with these methods?

Just trying to clean thing sup as much as I can before doing a more internal intake system cleaning using BG-44K through the gasoline.