The BEST way to clean a engine is to change the oil more frequent than required for a few changes. I don't recommend any chemicals that thin the oil even briefly. Our engines only take 3 quarts so it's not expensive to do 4 oil changes in 2 months and that will do a really nice job of cleaning.

 

I've never heard of that recommendation... ATF is mostly detergent, to prevent the huge pressures and heat an auto trans experiences from buliding deposits of ash, so perhaps that's why it's been claimed to work. Not personally going to try it as a engine cleaner, though -- do you have any idea what burned ATF might do to a catalyst? Me neither...

 

Here is a video of a mechanic demonstrating water and I think Seafoam,but it is an old Mustang

he says water is best.

 

My cousin bought a Charger for his 16th birthday many years ago. The original 383 in it was so neglected that three plug wires had no insulation but the engine seemed to still run fairly well. His dad worked as a mechanic for an oil company and swore that a few rapid oil changes would clean it up.
I've always been a 'show me' type person and doubted this simple remedy would really work. What seemed like no time at all I stopped by and they showed me how clean it was under the valve cover after the oil changes. I was shocked.
You've heard the term fight fire with fire. I never quite understood that but in this case it kind of applies. Petroleum often makes the best cleaner for petroleum products.
Another method is to change just the filter once a week and change oil with filter once a month for two months. It may take more time depending how nasty the mess is.

 

Interesting... I wonder if this applies to areas in the combustion chamber that are so carbonized, that normal oil flow is prevented from cleaning it. I say because as a parallel situation in a carburetor, varnish isn't going to go away with a fuel additive, unless there's a however tiny flow of fuel still there. It's like a dam... can hold back an entire river... but one crack can take the whole thing down. There's also the matter of carbon on the backs of the intake valves, which will require the injectors to clean.

I don't doubt what was seen, 'show me' keeps a tech's advice separate from fantasy. However there may be limitations to what it can accomplish vs. a fuel additive. Fresh oil is a must to longevity, though -- when I swap oil, I buy an extra quart, and while draining, dump in the new oil to wash remaining dirty oil out. You'd be surprised how much more brown shats out in that one extra quart. Replug, fill with filter.

209k, no smoke on startup. The cleaner the oil it starts with, the longer it'll take contaminants to ruin.

 

Marvel Mystery Oil is highly Refined ATF. Been using it for years to chean crank cases,a nd added to fuel to de carbon.

 

I have heard of this before as well as people using tide detergent and kerosene.


the BEST is BG 109 but I don't think that you can get it unless you are a garage. We use it at the shop I work at and its amazing. It cleans your motor and actually reseats the piston rings. I swear the stuff is magic. Most of the off the shelf stuff is junk aside from sea foam..



O wait never mind found the 109 for sale online link:

http://www.zip-corvette.com/ProductDetails/ProductDetails.aspx?pid={270d620e-fb6c-4c30-98bb-284a501a27bf}&gid={57c6b8a3-5299-44cb-b16c-54091d8f6f76}&GroupName=BG+Products&pname=BG+109+Compression+Performance+Restoration+Oil+Flush&Referer=&Alias=&ptct=GL2-SR&CTitle=&

 

Yeah, there are all kinds of claims for all manner of off-the-wall remedies for engines, probably from the dawn of internal combustion itself. Some will be complete horse doovers, and some will be legit. What's missing is reliable info on which is which.

One old-school story from my archives, involves my old service manager's boss in his own shop tech days, telling a senior tech about a Honda CB400F that had compression way under service limit, much to the chagrin of its young new owner. The senior tech tells Big Boss to take the air filter out, and rev the pi$$ out of the 400... and got a can of scouring power and tore it open, dumping it on a manila folder. He then made the folder into a V-shape, and slowly poured the scouring power into the carb mouths...

Effing scouring powder, as in silicon-scratch-glass-like-Toyota-gauge-plastic-scrub-your-grout-dioxide.

It was claimed that as he shook it in, the rpm began to rise as the rings "seated due to the natural cross-hatching of the powder on the cylinder wall as they rotated in their grooves at high rpm", and emerged with compression within service limit again after an oil change. Right.

I don't think you need much convincing to know I think it's total BS with a capital B and S... but while I was hearing this story, my boss' boss swore up and down it was true. I'm thinking, not with my iron-jugged 5E-FE you won't, and that's not to mention a 2ZZ-GE motor with silicon bores...

Just goes to show... when you hear about a new hot-tip for shortcutting, make sure you can confirm the signal from the noise... can be difficult.

 

I've done the seafoam treatment before and it does work, but also breaks loose larger particles that can clog small passages and that's no good. Ideally you want to erode the deposits slowly over the course of a few oil changes.

I suggest you a quart of Rislone in the next oil change and then change the oil again as soon as it turns black. Repeat for each oil change until the oil starts taking a lot longer to turn black. Rislone is basically oil with an extra heavy dose of the same types of detergents oil normally has in it and speeds up the erosion of deposits. The first time I did this I had black oil within 1000miles.

 

I have done this several times in one of my old cars, 90 Chevy Beretta. It was many years ago. However I did it a little different I used 1 quart of oil and did it about 1000km before my oil change. I also read that the detergents in the ATF would clean the internals. I had clean oil in that car all the way til it blew up at 480 000km.
If you tried it I doubt it would do any harm. Let us know if you do it and if it works.
Cy

 

Not true! The oil used to make automatic transmission fluid will burn and scorch and carbon up faster than you can blink in an engine. Few transmissions see temp.'s above 195° to 212° most of the time. So the fluid is not designed to see combustion temp.'s you see at the pistons and rings of an engine. On top of that transmissions do not see combustion gases, blow by or the waste products you see in an engine so they have no additives to deal with these.

This is an old wives tale left over from when Wale Oil was used to make ATF. Wale oil has a lot of ester's in it and ester's have a lot of polarity and polarity "polar" nature is what gave it long life, great cold and hot temp. characteristics.

As often as I talk about the properties of ester base stocks for hot and cold and cleaning characteristics you would think people would maybe read up on how amazing they are and shop for products with a lot of them in it. There was a time when this was what 99% of synthetic oils were made from! They cost 50% to 250% more than other base stocks so you seldom see them any more. Mobil-1, Amsoil and NEO Oil were all origanly I think based on diesters.

Currently the company with the most ester content is Red Line Oil in their Performance line 30% to 40% POE which is an ester and the remaining is PAO which is synthetic but not an ester.

Almost no other oil companies use it any more due to cost and when they do it is a tiny amount. In fact most do not use PAO for most of the products any more either. You have Castrol Syntec to thank for that combined with a court ruling in their favor. In the USA "Synthetic" has no legal definition. Castrol did not want to pay what Mobil now Exxon/Mobil wanted for PAO base stock so they switched to G-III base stock kept the price the same and stopped buying from Mobil. Mobil sued them because they were not using G-IV or higher base stocks and calling it "synthetic" but Mobil lost the case. Once everyone say that you could use anything you wanted to use and call it "synthetic" in the USA and charge top dollar the synthetic market was never the same again! In Germany for instance what can be sold as synthetic in the USA would have to be sold as "Part Synthetic".

This is one of those "Cooter" myths that just will not go away!

Changing your oil more frequently will not clean anything out of your engine. Oils are not designed to clean out existing garbage they are designed to keep an already clean engine clean and not leave too much of themselves behind if you change the oil often enough! In fact if they cleaned well that would be bad since they would use up all of their detergency and dispersant's at the beginning of the oil change which would leave nothing for the rest of the oil change.

The best way to clean out a dirty engine is to pop the valve cover and oil pan and mechanically clean them out with a pencil, putty knife and shop vac. Then use a solvent cleaner and parts brush to lean the rest. Then after that some sort of solvent flush. This is if you have sludge that can be seen with the naked eye!

If your engine is not a sludge beast and your piston rings are not glued tot he pistons a solvent flush can be used before changing the oil.

The best way to use a solvent flush is to use 1/3 to 1/2 of what it calls for the first time and to slowly build over time especialy if one suspects neglect. So if it says to add 1 bottle cut that down. Each time you change the oil add a bit more than last time. When you think the engine is ready for it at full strength leave the old filter in place put in fresh discount diesel oil like generic 5W40 and an entire can of your flush and let it rip.

The reason solvent flushes can be risky is that if they break loose a large chunk of sludge it can block an oil passage or the pick-up screen. Doing it slowly over time gives you the best chance of a good outcome especialy if the condition of the engine is not known.

I have a recipe that works fantastic for cleaning an engine and it's rings but I always caution people not to use it in a sludged engine. A sludged up engine is a ticking time bomb no matter what you do.

If it is worth doing it is worth doing right. I have never damaged any engine personally or professionally flushing one. I have heard hundreds of stories though were people did have bad outcomes flushing an engine.

If not making your own and not using a combination of strong ester's my favorite over the counter solvent based flush was B12 Chemtool. They no longer list instructions for engine flushing on the can though. This way you are not paying for mostly kerosene or diesel with a little bit of naptha in it! LOL

Another popular one was to put a quart of kerosine in the oil and run it for 15-30 minutes at 1200rpms then drain.

I like to use Schaeffer's Neutra 131 Fuel Stabilizer. Their direction for "Engine Purge" is to add 1oz per quart of oil to your engine oil 500-800 miles before you change it. Those directions are on the 1 gallon bottle I buy sure it is on the 12oz can. Their PDF for it and the brochure also list this usage! I have used up to 4x that amount slowly over time and not had any problem! It is not solvent based rather the listed ingredients an alcohol and an acid have been reacted to make a synthetic ester base stock combined with a light carrier oil. Unlike say B12 and Sea Foam it does not contain an alcohol in the bottle rather an alcohol and acid were reacted to make an ester. All esters are some form of alcohol and acid and some times some form of fat from a plant or animal reacted under different atmospheres, temp.'s, catalyst etc....to create the desired characteristics.

 

Additives in Valvoline Max Life ATF Petroleum Quality Institute of America

Additives in Valvoline Max Life 5W30 Valvoline High Mileage Maxlife SAE 10W-30 Synthetic Blend Motor Oil | The Petroleum Quality Institute of America

Notice that the oil has far more additives both of the same type and additional ones by a HUGE margin.

Science and Experince not bro-science and old wives tales!

If you put ATF in an engine and the oil turns dark fairly quickly it is not because it is cleaning anything it is just the ATF cooking like butter or bacon on a frying pan set too high for too long.

If you put ATF into your engine and have a clean engine it is not because of the ATF! The base stocks used in most mass produced ATF's would be considered absolute garbage by engine crank case standards!