for anyone other than a trained, experienced engineer, that's the machine shop's job

Changed the oil filter & oil. Started the car up, oil pressure high no rattles.Went for a drive good power, good oil pressure no funny noises. Will go for a good drive soon and change the oil and oil filter straight after, hopefully all is good.

you said it sat for ages, did you store this car or someone else.

it could have had thicker oil in it than its supposed to (or old thickened oil). a clean mineral oil 20.50, and a new filter lets the oil go through all the journals properley.

after tuning my car, it was too rich, and i had hotter spark plugs in it, after changing from 5's to 6's its still running a bit rough but all my rattles went away.

sounded like the rods and lifters were working overtime, tappety tap tap tap. i still cant get mine to idle smoothly as my carby needs an overhaul, but the rattles went away.

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Aussie Leyland, Aussie Factory, Aussie Mini S.

The car was stored and seldom driven. I have no excuses for the bad oil only it looked good on the stick, now obvious not as good in the sump region. Definitely a learning curve. The oil had almost separated, on the plug and was like sludge, being a magnetic plug had some funky stuff attached. The oil on oil filter was like melted chocolate in substance.
Just glad I checked and changed oil, before pulling the engine out unchecked. Just hope I haven't spoken too soon.

fingers crossed - good result otherwise, the old oil sounds nasty

Hopefully all good. Thanks to the members for their honesty with the big ends, very scary and a real possible diagnosis for my lack of thought. Opened my eyes as to something so cheap can cost you thousand. Definitely false economy on my part. As mentioned, it was like the oil had split, the top half looked quite usable, but the stuff down low was like gravy on your Sunday Roast.

What could have happened-
I bought an old `77 Moke (since sold).
There was no oil in it but it looked a bit sludgy in the rocker cover.
Anyway I decided to try and fire it up before the new owner carted it off.
New filter, new 20W/50oil, primed the pump a couple of turns backwards. Repeatedly...
Every time I hit the starter it would spit out the little I had put in, but nothing more. Final diagnosis- totally sludged up pickup screen.
A waste of good oil and new filter cartridge.

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DrMini- 1970 wasaMatic 1360, Mk1S crank, 86.6HP (ATW) =~125 @ crank, 45 Dellorto (38 chokes), RE282 sprint cam, 1.5 rockers, 11.0:1 C/R.