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| Anyone else use water for engine steam cleaning?; Seems to be a great way to clean inside of cylinders/heads as well as valves but change oil afterwards. | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Aug 20 2012, 09:34 AM (1,242 Views) | |
| cwatkin | Aug 20 2012, 09:34 AM Post #1 |
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I was wondering if anyone else here has ever used water to steam clean their engine in order to remove carbon deposits from their cylinder/head as well as valves. NOTE: If you do this, please do it before an oil change as you will get water in your oil! What I am talking about is getting your engine up to operating temp and then pulling the brake booster line and sucking in 20 oz of water or so while keeping the idle up. You will see steam and smoke (carbon) coming out the tailpipe. I did follow this up with some Seafoam and had let MMO sit in the cylinders overnight beforehand and ran Seafoam run in the oil for about 20-30 miles. The reason for the water is I guess the explosion of steam when it flashes from water into vapor does a great job of cleaning carbon deposits. For those who have ever taken apart an engine with a leaking head or intake gasket, you will see that the leaking cylinders are squeaky clean. I did all this cleaning in what appears to be a successful attempt to solve oil farting disease. This is a new car and engine to me and this car so I don't know the maintenance history. It seemed to run well but I got huge clouds of oil smoke out the tailpipe the first two times I took it on the interstate and pushed it on long uphill grades. I am new to these cars and was unaware this was a common problem until I posted about the issue. I thought I had blown up the engine when I saw the massive cloud coming out of the tailpipe the first time and began to suspect oil was puking into the TB throught the PCV hose the second time so I cleaned it up real nice with carb cleaner. I stopped after it did it the third time and could see that the oil was puking through the PCV hose for sure. Let's just say that that I got some nasty looks and yells after releasing a half mile blast of smokescreen on the big hill on I-44 just east of Ft. Leonard Wood where it did this twice in two days. Since I had just replaced the PCV during my engine swap, I figured it had to be something else. It is solved now so I must have either had a stuck ring that the Seafoam or MMO dislodged or the oil drainback holes in the head were partially clogged and were cleaned by these chemical solvents. I had flushed the engine for a short while with some cheap oil and MMO before switching to a full synthetic. I guess there was still some crud to clean out as I had only run this change for about 300 miles and it came out NASTY after all this cleaning. You definitely want to change the oil and filter right after doing all this due to the crud and water you will put into the crankcase. I noticed a slight milky hue to the oil as well as mayo under the oil fill cap and on the dipstick. I have run full synthetic oil in clean engines for 6000 miles and had it come out looking cleaner than this oil after 300 miles. I could tell that most of the crud in the oil showed up once I started cleaning by looking at the dipstick during the process. Anyway, I took the car out and drove it like I stole it after putting on a fresh filter and fill of full synthetic oil. I got it up to 87 mph (didn't know it would do this) on a long straightaway and got no more oil farting symptoms. This is by far the hardest I have ever run this little car as I had myself (160lbs) and another guy (260-270 lbs) in the car with both windows down. If the car was going do another oil fart, I think it would have been at this time. I also check compression and all cylinders were between 170 and 180. I had someone else do this before and forgot the exact numbers but I seem to recall them being slightly lower. Either way, I was considering rebuilding the dead engine (burned valves) that came in this car until I did all this. I don't know exactly what the problem was or what I fixed but would definitely suggest this to anyone else with oil farting issues. Conor |
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| 75monzatc | Aug 20 2012, 11:12 AM Post #2 |
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just jeremy
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I have never tried this myself, but seems like it would work as long as you carefully monitor how much you put in at a time. Putting too much might damage your engine based on how much expansion takes place when water flashes to steam, roughly 1,600 times volume change happens. The other thing to watch for is don't use tap water, use demineralized water. Tap water contains dissolved and suspended particles sometimes that you may not see, but once in your engine might not be caught by the oil filter till its already been through your rings/bearings. Demin has all that taken out so no worries. I use a water injection system on my cummins diesel that works great for other reasons than cleaning, helps lower my exhaust temp some so I can run more boost.
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| cwatkin | Aug 21 2012, 01:09 PM Post #3 |
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Yeah, that is a good point. I did use tap water on mine but changed the oil immediately after. I will plan to use distilled the next time. Conor |
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9:35 AM Jul 11