Hey techguru

do you think its fine to run throught the gas tank???????

I have, and felt a great difference. reading what you wrote it does seem i be using it the crankcase..

What do you recommend to use in thecrankcase ???
thanks

 

Ah what the hell, i decided to see what the sea foam company has to say about their product. What exactly do they claim it does? What does common sense and logic say when applied to their claims?

http://www.seafoamsales.com/motorTuneUpConsumer.htm

1.When your vehicle has a rough idle, hesitates, stalls, pings or has an after run problem – this is often due to carbon buildup.

-Yea, and that traffic jam in the morning is due to carbon buildup There are so many possible reasons for these symptoms, carbon being one of them. Pouring additives in oil/gas will not adress the root cause of these issues even if it removed the carbon.

2.When your vehicle’s fuel injectors need cleaning – this is often due to residue left on injectors from poor burning fuels and contaminants.
-So how is pouring low quality oil and rubbing alcohol in your gas going to clean it out?
3.When moisture needs to be removed from fuels or an anti gel or de-icer is needed – these conditions are due to condensation in the fuel tank and extreme cold weather creating gas line freeze or diesel fuel gelling.
-Im sorry but moisture can not be removed from fuel. It physically can not mix with fuel. It can get into your gas tank or lines, settling at the bottom. The rubbing alcohol can bond with both gas and water getting some of the water pumped out with the fuel. the real solution is to clean and decontaminate the tank and lines.

4.When there is moisture detected in the oil – this problem is due mostly to poor ventilation and condensation. Sometimes, however, there is a bad head gasket, cracked head or block that must be replaced.
-See above. oil and water do not mix. water would collect at the bottom of the crank case, making it fairly easy to remove, unless you have a massive amount from a blown head gasket. real solution (unless you have a $500 car): disassemble, hot tank. Adding solvent and low quality oil will not get water out of your motor.

5.When valve lifter noise is apparent or piston rings seem to be sticking – this is often due to dirty and gummed up oil passages, varnished lifters and buildup of gum, varnish and carbon in the piston ring areas.

-Same as #1, if you have these problems the root cause needs to be addressed, or you will blow your motor eventually. Adding solvent to oil and destroying its ability to lubricate wont help.

6.To help pass emissions tests – high emission numbers are usually caused by extreme carbon build up, dirty emission control items such as: pcv valve, egr valve, oxygen sensors or bad spark plugs and wires.

-So pour rubbing alcohol and lighter fluid in your gas and oil..... that will fix your bad 02 sensors and burned spark plug wires.

7.When fuel stabilization and engine fogging is needed – fuels of today become stale in less than thirty days. Therefore, stabilization and engine fogging are needed when vehicles, lawnmowers, snow blowers, outboard motors, chainsaws, motorcycles, gas in cans and engines are put into storage.

-I dont know all that much about long term fuel storage, but i dont think id add pale oil, rubbing alcohol, and lighter fluid is going to help.

 

IPA is indeed rubbing alcohol. if youre driving a beater, then i guess it doesnt matter if you just need to keep it running. i would use gas or kerosene because its cheaper and would work better. for a decent motor or something you want to last, run mobile 1 full synthetic. It has kick *** detergents. the first time you use it on a motor that has ran crap oil its whole life, do a change after 1000 miles. it will come out as black as crude. thats probably the best motor flush you can use.

as far as the rack and pinion, 90's made in the good old USA vehicles have quite a large tolerance in bearings and moving parts in these systems. you could probably fill the power steering res with brake fluid and get another 10k out of it.

if youre seriously concerned with sludge, which i dont think you should be if you run quality synth oil, then pop a valve cover or oil pan and take a look. Id recommend verifying that a problem exists and treating the root cause, unless you just need to keep a beater on the road.

I am drawing this info from my experience as a professional mechanic, used to be an ASE master tech (for wtf ever thats worth, ive met master techs that couldnt change a tire) and from buying/driving bucket cars for years, from mach 1's to celicas. Taken a lot of heads off and pulled a lot of motors. Have purchased cars out of fields that looked like they came from a Grade C reproduction of mad max and pulled motors apart. During all this wrenching, i found one motor that I can remember that had enough carbon and sludge in it to actually cause problems. that was a old chevy 283 that I found in a field.

 

as far as putting it in gas,

the pale oil should harm nothing and provides no benefit that i know of.

the IPA and naptha, that can actually clean deposits and some small amount of water in a fuel system, to what extent i dont know. But all gas sold in the USA has a federally mandated amount of detergent that is designed to do the job. even so, youll get some deposits. not usually enough to hurt performance. The best thing to do is to track your gas miles with the trip meter every time you fill up. if your mileage is constant, you are golden. if you got bad deposits the mileage will go down. that is the ultimate indicator of your cars overall health.

that being said, in my personal experience i have pulled fuel lines off 1960's cars that came out of fields and junkyards. amazingly enough the lines are brand new and shiny on the inside, almost without exception. because fuel itself is an excellent solvent. inside fuel injectors is another story. if an injector is clogged it will most likely need to be disassembled. if youve ever pulled a head off a motor and tried to scrape the carbon off the piston and valve, youll know what im talkin bout. the stuff dont just disolve.

On garbage motors ive put one piston at bottom center, and poured a variety of solvents in the cylinder to see what happened to the carbon. carbon cleaners, carb cleaners, additives, gas, motor oil. gas always worked the best on losening it enough to scrape it off with a putty knife easily. but nothing disolved it.

danger: ipa (rubbing alcohol) and naptha will make rubber fuel connections hard and brittle. use that stuff too much and it will cause premature failure of rubber connections. exactly how much and how long is anyones guess. especially bad if you have some rubber parts on the fuel pump and guage sending unit itself.

what to run in your crankcase:
mobil one full synthetic, the manuf. rec viscosity which will be in your owners manual or on the oil fill cap. thats it, nothing else, ever. nothing cleans sludge better (without comprimising lubrication). i actually use this as a motor flush on cars that have run crap oil.

 

might as well address the inital post

To properly clean out a really dirty TB it needs to be removed. Otherwise you can use some TB cleaner spray. only use something that is advertised as TB spray safe for 02 sensors and cats. NOT CARB SPRAY - be careful because some spray cleaners have solvents that can damage your 02 sensor and cat even after burning in the cylinder.

Clean the TB as a preventative maint. at every other oil change with a small bit of spray and a wipe. if you notice a lot of buildup, find where its coming from and solve the problem there. of course thats assuming that you can actually access the back side of the butterfly with the TB still on the manifold

 

Tech Guru, I don't doubt you knowledge or experience. I read the links and have read pros and cons on snake oils for 40 years. I'm just saying that it worked on a Olds steering rack. Those cars I referred to didn't start asbeaters as I bought both of those new. I still have the '95Bonnie and in my life time it has been the cheapest car I've ever owned period. I've used and on yearly basis continue.On all my vehicles I've changed oil at 3k intervals. This is long before mobile 1. Will I use mobile 1 in my a4? Sounds like it is what everyone recommends and yes I will.
Have I ever seen sludge build up. You bet. WhenI worked at dealership,theownercursed Pennsylvania crude motor oil {Penz, Q State). After pulling valve covers off of trade ins, it was obvious, just like a coating of tar on rockers, valve covers, that was sludge.
Oh and carbon build up. Hell there is no solvent out there that could take it off valve stems. When I used to do overhauls, it was a wire wheel to knock off the the loose layer then off to the bead blaster to get to metal. Really. Ahh 283 ci chevy. The motor wasn't designed to last 80k without a valve job/complete overhaul. I did many of those. The clearances, the technology andthe metalsalloys just weren't there at that time. Didn't matterhow often youchanged the oil.I haven't seen a 90's or newer engine apart to know for sure how they carbon up. Leaded gas was the biggest culprit. The best thing that happenedis fuel injection, fuel mixtures thru out the operating range are so much better. Clean gas is a must. Where to get it. Hah, you can get a bad tankful anywhere at anytime. Gas is gas. I'm not sure how it is done anywhere else, but here in Iowa it comes in a pipeline to a terminal. It is stored in these huge white tanks. I've seen the names of just about every major gas retailer semi coming out of that terminal. I'm just guessing it is all the same damn stuff. I use E10 (10% ethanol and 90% petrol) since it became available in '79. You know what happened within the 2nd tankful on every vehicle I put it in? Plugged fuel filter. That stuff will clean the gunk out of a tank. I listen to the ethanol naysayers for the last 30 years. Never had bad injectors. Never.I've used it eveything, lawmowers chainsaws, weedeaters and all of my cars.Enough with this post and my rambling.

 

i referenced my exp. just so you can understand where I was getting my info. I have no doubt that this product may be useful in certain situations. but my problem with it is that it is marketed as a fix everything and people do random stuff with it thinking it will solve the worlds problems. due diligence, act with a purpose, which it sounds like youre doing. for people without the proper knowledge and experience using something like this is probably a mistake. i have used products like this on motors and power steering systems that were on their last legs and yes it can work but for god sakes people dont put this stuff into a perfectly good car! i youtubed seafoam and saw people putting this into intakes of sc400's and STI's, S4's...

taking the wire wheel to the carbon is what i was talking about when i said if youve taken a motor apart you know what i mean... if that stuff is bonded on there as such, burning some oil and alcohol isnt gonna dissolve the carbon into such fine particles that it wont clog up the cat.

yes ethanol is great for keeping things clean without damaging rubber like other alcohols and solvents. if you live in california you need not add ethanol as we have ETBE which as far as regular people are concerned is ethanol, or at least has the effect of keeping your fuel system cleaner than it would be without.