Sludge in the Intercooler!! Could this really cause lurching and other seemingly transmission woes?

[Sgtmeatsauce1]

Likes it for me, says it rides pretty hard for a luxury car. I told her it's a 4 door family sports car. With performance package. She prefers a nicer cushy ride.

 

[rcryniak]

UPDATE: Got the work done. Haven't noticed a problem yet, but haven't had it on 30min+ trip yet. I'll let you all know in a week after it's had some real road time. If that caused it, then at least we'll know to look at that problem/solution for those particular symptoms.

 

[Sgtmeatsauce1]

Do you know if much gunk came out? I wonder if this is climate oriented, like worse in hot or cold areas or areas that get extreme temp changes like here in NJ

 

[brucelinc]

Where did it come from and how did it get there?

 

[rcryniak]

I got feedback from the guy that cleaned it out - he said it wasn't as bad as he expected, but there was definitely some sludge in there. Where did it come from? Oil from the turbos (expected), mixed with water from condensation. It created a sludge like oily mixture that could have been getting ingested into the throttle body since the intercooler is the last stop before that. The water from condensation is expected since there's bound to be small amounts of water in the air the car is taking in (natural humidity) and since it's "charge air cooler", it's bound to cause some condensation. Water + oil + time = sludge.

Since I've had it cleaned, I've had ZERO symptoms of odd seemingly-powertrain-related behavior. I even took it on a trip with the family to Cedar Point in Sandusky, OH; and it performed perfectly the entire time. I'll post again if something changes, but for now, seems like the Ford Tech was right. Sludge = weird throttle body related behavior. Cant' say I'm surprised - it makes sense. After all, when I inhale something my airway wasn't designed for, I cough too!!

 

[monkeyboyx]

I used this vacuum attachment kit from Harbor freight. Worked out very well. Yes it did have some oil in the inter-cooler.
http://www.harborfreight.com/8-piece-micro-vacuum-attachment-kit-32994.html $7
Also recommend getting one of these inspection cameras. You can go more fancy, every store seem to have them these days.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Whistler-Inspection-Camera/23676516 $60

2012, MKS, 52K on the clock.

 

[rcryniak]

I used this vacuum attachment kit from Harbor freight. Worked out very well. Yes it did have some oil in the inter-cooler.

Using a pump was the first thing I tried - in fact I have several types of pumps now, tried them all. In my particular case, the sludge was too thick to suck out. It had far too high viscosity to be able to displace the air once a chunk was pulled out. It was more like a runny paste than an oil, where the paste was literally slower than molasses. The dipstick (as in the first pic in the OP) grabbed the runny stuff only - I didn't see the chunky stuff until I tried to suck some out. Except for where the intercooler connected to the hose that carried the air charge to the throttle body - there was bits of chunky sludge collected on the edge of the pipe interface - presumably what was getting inhaled. After wiping that away, the only time I saw chunks was when trying to vacuum the oil out.

So, for those of you that try to pump and get some scary singular chunk of sludge come out instead of a flow of oil - you'll have to follow the factory procedure of pulling the IC from the car and flushing it with Simple Green. Skaken, not stired.