Date: Sun, 20 Jun 2010 11:50:13 -0500
Reply-To: Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Tom Hargrave <thargrav@HIWAAY.NET>
Subject: Re: Was Techron, now MMO
In-Reply-To: <4c1e2d17.853adc0a.0ad0.ffffc87a@mx.google.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
The transmission fluid trick will work for any engine that has coked up
rings.
The cause is the that the oil in the ring lands is exposed to high
combustion driven temperatures and some of the oil is turned into rock hard,
black carbon - the process is called coking. Some engines are more
susceptible to coking than others and some never do.
The early 5W-30 oils that GM and others demanded we all use in our 80s and
90s cars seriously contributed to the problem because the additive packages
in these oils were very susceptible to coking. The 10W-40 oils suffered from
the same problem. I don't know if the oil companies solved this one.
Also, coking is what changes your gasoline engine oil black. Some of the
carbon washes back out of the rings & into your crank case. This is also why
synthetic oil used in some cars never turns black - 100% synthetic oil can
withstand much higher temperatures before coking.
And this is also why synthetic oil is the best anti-coking solution for
engines with this problem. Even the thinner 5W XX synthetics don't have the
problem Dino oils have because they don't need as many additives as Dino
oil.
Tom
www.stir-plate.com
-----Original Message-----
From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf Of
Edward Maglott
Sent: Sunday, June 20, 2010 10:00 AM
To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
Subject: Re: Was Techron, now MMO
An autocross buddy years ago was trying to revive an abused acura he bought
cheap. It had low compression. he said he took out the spark plugs and put
a few ounces ATf in each cyl then left it for a couple days. Then cranked
engine to spray out as much ATF as possible. Then put the plugs back in and
started it to massive smoking of course. ran it until smoking stopped then
changed the oil. It unstuck the piston rings and compression went way up.
Just another tip to store in the ol' brain. That trick might not work so
well on our boxer engines though.
Edward
At 08:12 PM 6/19/2010, Tom Hargrave wrote:
>The transmission fluid trick was a common solution for this problem
>back in the 60s. The transmission fluid dissolved all of the varnish
>and sludge back into the oil where it was pulled out with the next oil
change.
>
>More modern oils have additives to prevent this from occurring. That is
>assuming you change your oil before the additive packages wear out,
>which most still don't do.
>
>Tom
>www.stir-plate.com
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Vanagon Mailing List [mailto:vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM] On Behalf
>Of Dave Mcneely
>Sent: Saturday, June 19, 2010 5:28 PM
>To: vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM
>Subject: Re: Was Techron, now MMO
>
> > BTW, when we came across a seriously sludged engine we would drain
> > the oil, pour in 4 quarts of transmission fluid and run AT IDLE for
> > a
> few minutes.
> >
