Nice GIF - provides a good analogy => you need a lot of heat to burn off grease / oil

As I asked earlier - what's the exhaust manifold like?

If that is getting gunked up with goo too then the oxygen sensor will probably start to struggle and the catalytic converter will get less and less effective and eventually you'll end up with annual emission / exhaust gas check test failures.

Whilst you could argue that all old cars end up with this trouble and that "they all look like that" it doesn't mean it is "normal" - you might say it is "commonly found" - but that doesn't mean it is OK.

I consider it to be a point of concern.

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1992 W201 190E 1.8 171,000 km - Daily driver
1981 W123 300D ~ 100,000 miles / 160,000 km - project car stripped to the bone
1965 Land Rover Series 2a Station Wagon CIS recovery therapy!
1961 Volvo PV544 Bare metal rat rod-ish thing

I'm here to chat about cars and to help others - I'm not here "to always be right" like an internet warrior



Don't leave that there - I'll take it to bits!