Sorry for the delay... Depression has really knocked me down lately and never had the motivation to do things. However, finally forced myself out today since it was pretty and I had the time.

Thanks for all the suggestions, everyone. Ran to O'Reilly today and asked, they said they allow you to change your oil in the parking lot as long as it's to the side of the building, not the road-facing one. Score. Grabbed a bottle of Motor Medic and an oil change with store-brand high mileage and a mopar filter. I had checked other places and they wanted like, $16+ for the motor medic, 4.99 at O'Reilly, so not bad. Anyway, I ran it for six minutes, 'cause I'm a rebel (and happened to not have noticed the timer right off), then commenced with the oil change. Afterwards I took it for a bit of a spin up to temp.

Immediately I noticed my oil pressure was stupid high, staying around the 3/4+ mark in the gauge even at idle until it warmed up, then after it reached temp at idle, it still hovered just under the 40psi line. Did a few redline runs at WOT and couldn't get the pressure to drop out so MAYBE it was just a partial clog in the return gallery keeping it from draining back and the flush cleaned them out... Fingers crossed. Did notice my truck had a lot more pep than usual (accidentally made some noise while leaving O'reilly ...>-> I don't get to enjoy that squeal often). I reset my trip meter, and I'll likely do another flush treatment and oil change at about 1-1.5k miles just to help out more. I'll use it as my daily driver again and update you guys with results.

EDIT: Also made sure to drop 4 quarts in, instead of upwards to five to see if that helps as well.

 

I keep a gallon or two of my used oil on the shelf. I use for chainsaws, use it to flush out residual motor flush, also to top off when approaching an oil change... no sense throwing new synthetic after old. I no longer have any oil loss now tho. Took care of all that.

 

I've never believed in "fix-in-a-bottle" type products, but took my truck for a real run, about 40 minutes on the interstate... Oil pressure was phenomenal... Never dropped out and stayed right at 3/4 on the gauge, at idle, just under 40. It kept that noticeable power bump as well, it's nothing extreme, but very obvious especially on takeoff. Just has a bit more pep (and actually spins tires on command now), wonder if I did have more of a sludge issue than I thought. Definitely gonna short-change the oil at about 1k miles and run another bottle, just to help liquify any more so it doesn't risk just pumping it through and gumming up again.

 

Glad things worked out for u. Might want to go with full syn oils. They don't coagulate as much to form sludge. Quaker State Ultimate Durability 5W30 is only 20 bucks for the big jug at Walmart.

 

Before the next oil change, pour a bottle of Marvel Mystery Oil in, and run easy it about 50 miles before the change. Your oil might gloop out when you change it. My family has always run this every few oil changes, and even after 400K miles the worst we'll see when we crack an engine open is a little varnish in the corners of the valve covers. No sludge anywhere in the engine.