Hairballs in the airfilter housing??????

[jassz]

I think we may have acquired a car that should be reported to social services for neglect.

I'll try not to repeat my story too much (there was another thread on this car), but in a nutshell:
1. We bought a 1981 300TD with 275,000 miles on it.
2. Then we bought another 81 300TD with half the mileage on it, hoping to use it as a parts car for the first one. This car failed emission testing (blows quite a bit of smoke), has low compression testing, but still has a great deal of power and acceleration. There is a whole other thread on how/why that could be. We are hoping that there isn't something really seriously wrong with the motor and that it might breathe some life back in to our first car (which has a much better chassis).

So, my husband is in the middle of adjusting the valve clearances (Thankyou Thomasspin!). They were WWWAAAAAY out, so hopefully having that done will give some improvement.

But, along the way we discovered that there is all this 'stuff' in the airfilter housing. I'll post a few pics (sorry I can't do it all in one post I dont' think). Do you think that this could be the result of much too infrequent oil changes? Some of it almost looks like shale, but it's softer. The weirdest thing was this ball of.... well, it looks like hair. At first I thought it was steel wool (maybe left behind when cleanign something?), but when you touch it it feels like something the cat might cough up.

In light of this, do you have any recommendations on what to do next? An engine flush?? A dose of hairball medication??