Check out the pic's... anyone know how it got this way?

I finally got around to taking the valve cover of off the 1990 300SEL that I got from my buddy's family who just gave it to me. It's been sitting around for a couple of years. I knew it had the blue smoke out the tail pipe so I'm getting ready to change the valve seals as a first step. There is no "milk shake" in the oil so no head gasket problem of that type. It has a lot of oil at the side of the engine so it might have the typical head gasket outer oil leak.

When I removed the valve cover I discovered the most gunked up valve train I've even seen. It looks like someone poured black marshmallow sauce all over it.

I scraped as much of it off as I could after a couple of hours of work. I've made sure that all the oil drain ports were open down to the oil pan. I then drained the oil, installed a new filter, added new oil including 1 bottle of ATF to help clean things up. I plan to do another oil change after I've changed the valve stem seals and driven it for a couple of hundred miles.

Attached Thumbnails

         

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03 CLK430 Cabrio 211K Pweter Silver/ Oyster Leather
90 300SEL 214k Pearl Black/ Alto Grey/Black Leather

Prior: 85 190E, 88 300TE, 89 300TE, 90 300E 2.6, 90 300TE, 92 300E 2.6, 91 and 93 300SL, 87 Ferrari Mondial Cabrio