Driving old cars and trucks, a hydraulic lifter will sometimes get a bit of grit in those tiny orifices, and stay bled down – major valvetrain noise all of the sudden.
Grandad swore by Marvel Mystery Oil. Dad said it was probably just ATF and some perfume.
Today, suddenly had major valve clatter in the ’78 GMC six. Started and stopped a couple of times, no dice – sounded like lots of little guys tapping to get out. Got it home.
No MMO. Put in a pint of trans fluid in the crankcase on a whim. Cranked it up; not even out of the driveway before the clatter TOTALLY WENT AWAY.
Forrest – just thought I should tell somebody
Replies
I know another tidbit for them old geezer cars.
Back in 73 I pulled the old White up to the bay and went and got the older mechanic. We could hear ticking coming from in the motor. He said it was carbon flaking off the cylinder heads. He went inside and poured a box of baking soda into a gallon of water and told me to keep it running at high idle. As I did, he poured that entire gallon of water down the throat of the carb.
It worked....it cleaned the cylinders out and the ticking stopped! I thought he was nuts. He wasn't.
Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
been around cars forever and never heard that one with water and soda.
back in 79 i was buying and selling cars ,bought a 75 vette that had a knock in the motor. i bought it with the thought it would need overhauled. did just what you did except i poured trans fluid down the carb, smoked up the entire neighborhood. but it quit knocking,must of had a pc of carbon floating on a piston and the oil got it out of there .
now theres no carb........................... larryif a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
Just out of curiosity, did you really witness this, or was the story passed on to you ?
I would have thought the water would lock up a 4 stroke motor, since it won't compress.....Hydrolock. No?
But....I'm no mechanic.
Bing
Bing,
Yep, it was the trick on the carbed motors. Especially before computers.
You of course would not pour the whole gallon down quickly. I would pour some water down the throat of the carb slowly while keeping the engine revved up.
It's sort of like steam cleaning the engine internally.
Now with computers and injectors, it's just not necessary or even able to be done.
Bryan"Objects in mirror appear closer than they are."
Klakamp Construction, Findlay, Ohio - just south of the Glass City
i have done it with water and transmission fluid. the water will sream clean it and the transimmion will burn it off.
I've seen a similar trick for cleaning heat exchangers on boilers and furnaces. The carbon disappears.
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My first year of high school was the last year they offered a class called General Science Aerospace. Great class, we wrote our own textbook with our notes from the lectures. I recall Mr Harvey telling us that some older aircraft used water injection to keep the combustion temperatures manageable and you also got additional power from the steam expanding in the hot combustion chamber.I had a toyota that was detonating/pinging a lot on long hills so I tried rigging up an experimental water injection system. I ran a gallon or more of water in the motor on a 10 mile drive. Not really sure it helped anything but the oil looked like chocolate milk when I checked it at my destination. Apparently water was getting forced past the rings???One contemporary use of water injection is on a six cycle engine. Here is a cut and paste describing ithttp://www.autobloggreen.com/2007/05/24/for-40-percent-better-fuel-economy-introducing-the-steam-en/Well, not exactly. After a history of getting maximum power out of whatever engine he could, inventor Bruce Cower is refocusing his talents onto fuel efficiency. He has spent a modest $1,000 over 1.5 years to reinvent our combustion cycle. He's taking the opposite route of Gary Smyth researching the efficiency potential of two-cycle ICEs, and perfecting a six-cycle engine. The basic idea is that the combustion chamber wastes a lot of energy in heat, so you can recapture some of that heat by squirting water into the 1500 degree chamber after the fourth stroke removes the exhaust gas. The water instantly vaporizes, producing a 1600 fold expansion in volume, powering the fifth stroke. On the final upward stroke, the steam is sucked out into a condenser to be reused as more injection water.Cower estimates that using this method could increase fuel efficiency of gas engines by 40 percent, and diesels 5 (because they're already more efficient). The best part is, this technology can be implemented using existing parts right now, instead of waiting for other technologies to mature. Cower is tight-lipped about details on his invention while he waits for an answer on his patent application, but does have a working prototype in the form of a single-cylinder, blistering 8 horsepower diesel engine, which he has dubbed the Steam-o-Lene engine (from gas-o-line, I assume). If he gets his approval, he plans on selling the technology to whatever automaker can implement it.[Source: Popular Science via Instapundit]
I had my foot on the pedal! I didn't believe that it would work but it did. Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
back in my gearhead days, the last thing we would do before teardown to overhaul an old motor would be to run the motor at 3000 rpm or so and trickle a gallon of water in the carb. the theory was that you'd get clean pistons and valves.
Blue,
Old trick, only soda isn't needed.. Water injection turns to steam and that knocks carbon loose. Soda could have some long term damage.. water injection trick comes from Model T Ford days.
Used during WW2 to supliment nitrous injection and prevent knocking on take off of grossly overloaded planes
The old geezer died in 74 so I can't set him straight. I did get his work shirts though and it always surprised me when someone read the name over my pocket and called me Frank! Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
Sometimes people call me Dave or Frank too. Happens so often I think I'll set up another identity.I think it comes from misreading the way I write my name, Paul Francis
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"Soda could have some long term damage.. "Yeah, but so can steam. Heard of one guy who blew his gaskets out. 'course they were probably bad already and just itching to let go.And I'm sure that gas in the oil could do the same with enough blow-by.
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Piffin,
I suspect that is the case, a weak head gasket already and the added pressure of steam was enough to put it over..
Like I said it's a old Moel T Ford trick and those things didn't have great head gaskets to begin with so if you had to take the head off anyway why would it have been so common?
Plus they used water injection along with nitrous on all those WW2 era planes for added power during overloaded take offs. which considering the risks you wouldn't think they would dare do if it had a real tendancy to blow gaskets..
One thing that comes to my mind is that you have to be careful not plug the honeycomb in your catalytic converter when all that carbon washes off the valve train, combustion chamber and piston.
Last night I watched an episode of "Two guys garage" on the Speedchannel and they talked about Z-max. They did some testing on the show and the result looked ok to me. The put a drop of Z-max on a 195 degree hot plate and put carbon chunks into the liquid. You could literally see how the carbon was braking down and dissolving.Martin
Did they have cat converters back in the days of carbuerators?
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Piffin
Yes!
Cat's were 1975 injection was rare untill the mid 80's!
DW's old 75 Triumph Spitfire US spec model has a catalytic converter and some other stupid emissions c##p on it.Martin
Edited 4/3/2008 6:04 pm by myhomereno
i'll go you one better... i have many times run a garden hose into the carb with a steady flow...
the idea is... you do this when the engine is hot... the noise you are hearing is precombustion where the redhot carbon buildup is igniting the fuel Before the spark plug fires... which is when the fuel charge (fuel & air) is being compressed but too far before top dead center making the piston want to travel back down the bore vs keep'n on it's rightful path... this condition is BAD as in it will beat the rod bearing out of it... break a piston at the pin ect... whatever is the weakest link..
so you get the engine hot... all that carbon build up is also hot... with the engine running at a good clip... 2500 or so rpm.... you feed it water with the air dirrect injection... not so much to stall the engine out which might require give'n it more gas... the water won't compress (which is why it'll increase performance on aircaft by increasing the compression) but it's alot like shot blasting the inside of the combustion chamber... it will remove ALOT of carbon buildup i've had over a cup full on the ground by the exhaust pipe on an old volvo... it just kept spitting it out... but ran great after... you want to run it for awhile after this treatment alot will stick to the plugs and water will end up in the oil... but by run'n it the heat will cook the water out of the oil and the junk that stuck to the plugs will blow out... I always change the plugs and oil & filter about 25 miles after... IF the car or truck is worth more than the plugs & oil cost... many of my rides would be considered totaled if the tank was on empty
p
You never cease to amaze me Ponytl! Bob's next test date: 12/10/07
if it keeps giving trouble ,go to the dodge dealer and get a pint of oil supplement. i drive dodges,have for about 15 years now. they are terrible at rattling lifters. so bad that dodge makes this product,so i use it at every oil change and use vavoline which seems to help the lifters also. larry
if a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
OK, now whatcha got for keeping the mopar rear ewds from falling apart?;)
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i shouldn't even say this,i have never had rear end problems in the dodge,but i have never owned one that the trannie wasn't goofy in one way or another. motor failures has not been a problem either.
catalitic convertors came out around the mid 70's so a lot of carburated cars clear up until late 80's. i remember how evreyone would take them off,then it became illegal and they came out with test tube pipes,you were suppose to replace your convertor with the pipe ,drive it around the block to see if it run better,then put a new conveter on. yeah right you just left the pipe in. larryif a man speaks in the forest,and there's not a woman to hear him,is he still wrong?
About 15 years ago a friend of mine back in Germany had a late 70's BMW 3 series. The car had IRS but the diff sounded awful. It was very noise and sounded as when it needed replacing. I asked him about the problem he said to me: don't worry about it, I'll fix it for 3 bucks. I had no idea what he was going to do with it until I watched him repair it at his work on the car hoist (he worked as a auto mechanic). He took the top fill screw out of the rear diff cover and topped it up with oil. Than he took 4 bananas, peeled them and shoved them in their as well. Yes your reading correctly, 4 bananas in a diff.
Afterwards he put the screw back in it and we went for a test drive. And if you believe it or not: the diff was quiet for the next half year at least when he sold the car to some poor guy that didn't know about the bananas.Martin
Great news! That engine will run forever... one of the best ever.
I have the Chevy 250 (Merc 165) in our boat and discovered that the oil filter was the cause of a lifter tick. The rubber check valve in the filter (Wicks) would get a bit less pliable after six months and not allow the oil to flow well .... changed over to the standard Purolator filters on everything and nary a problem since.
Had a Fram filter (AMX 390) that, after just a month of use, caused the oil pressure to "flutter"... disconcerting to see after a round of "gallons-per-minute" fuel consumption.
Here's another one I learned from an old Caterpillar engine engineer (he learned it during the Alaskan Pipeline construction project):
Drop the viscosity of the engine oil during the cold season.
I run the Jeep (4.0 inline) on 5w-30 in winter and cured it's 10w-40 lifter hammer... been doing it 5 years now and have had no clat-t-t-t-er since. The Audi 5 inline had the same issue... cured with 5w-30. Both are high mileage and running strong.
Pressure ain't as important as volume...
Troy - stirring the "length vs girth" debate
A La Carte Government funding... the real democracy.
McDesign
Carefull to flush that ATF from the oil quickly or risk losing the camshaft..
A better solution is Synthetic oils changed on a regular basis.. but you might have acquired the engine all gunked up and are doing damage controll.
If you have lifters clattering change oil frequently in order to clean up the engine prior to going to a synthetic. No sense spending good money on oil that will simply pick up a lot of gunk and dirt.
Marvel Mystery Oil is widely renowned to be as good a cure for lifter noise as sex is for a sore back - or whatever else ails you.
I'va always had the same opinion that it was hydraulic fluid
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