Neutra 131 piston soak: Yes? No?

[kev99sl]

As a Saturn driver who has now officially tried everything to curb my car's oil drinking, I'm wondering if pulling the plugs and soaking the pistons with Neutra 131 would do any good.

My thinking is this: our pistons don't have holes to drain oil away from the ring pack. Therefore, running stuff in the crankcase (Auto RX, Neutra, etc.) does little to no good because it can't get where it is needed in any meaningful concentration for any meaningful amount of time -- it just doesn't circulate as much as it needs to around the ring pack. By pulling the plugs, the 131 can go right to the source.

Granted, I've tried this with Marvel Mystery Oil, but I don't think that's much of a cleaner as it is a pure penetrant.

Would this do any harm? What does everyone think? If I try this and it doesn't work, I'm officially giving up, and I'll start using some Lucas HD stabilizer or 132 to keep her going as long as I can.

[ December 20, 2002, 02:55 PM: Message edited by: kev99sl ]

 

[Giles]

The combination of Lube Control and Fuel Power might do the trick. It is supposed to be amazing at freeing stuck rings by disolving and removing carbon. Lube Control goes in the oil, Fuel Power in the gas tank.

Contact Terry a site sponsor for more info if your intrested. Also do a search and you should find some interesting threads.

 

[OneQuartLow]

Kev99, I've had very good luck with mopar combustion chamber cleaner (spray can) for stuck rings & bad carbon deposits. It's normally applied in the throttle body but for this it's best in the plug openings to soak for a while. Good right before an oil change since plenty will leak into the sump.

Warm it up thoroughly
pull the plugs
pull the primary
soak each cylinder
crank it over once
let sit for 20min
crank again
after ensuring liquid is gone, restore parts & start
keep it slow the first few minutes.
Your neighbors may call the EPA when they see/smell the white cloud.

I've never seen the MSDS for MCCC but I will say you don't want to breathe it. Strong stuff. Popular dealer shop item. Goes for ~$5-8 at parts counters. I like Neutra but it may be too gentle if you only want to treat once. Maybe Bob could comment on his experiences.

David

 

[BOBISTHEOILGUY]

Kev99,

This procedure will not hurt your engine. We have a few mechanics that use the 131 as a pre soaker for locked up rings in engines that haven't been cranked. Other guys use our penetro 90 spray. In your case, the neutra would be my choice as we both know it isn't a locked up engine condition but hopefully carbon locked rings and not just worn out.

Question, did you ever call tim and talk with him as we talked about? You never did let me know if you did.
bob

 

[BOBISTHEOILGUY]

I just saw Davids comments on here which shows his post time was after mine but yet posted a moment sooner than mine. Anyway, Davids points about passing down in the cyl's would be correct.

The 131 would be gentle and in the use of breaking engines loose, they soak for several days, somedays going out to try and move it.

With the neutra, I'd soak each cyl as long as you can go with out your car to no more than a couple 3-5days max. Have a bottle in your gase as well, this will continue to provide neutra to the top side of the cyl through the gas, and a bottle in the oil so to help from the bottom end. All this can be done with out an oil change as it will not hurt you oil/engine. It will soften the carbon.

As for some of the engine cleaners, I'd highly recommend following davids advise and do not drive/run the engine until a complete oil change is done.

Before you go through all this, I hope you talk to tim first, as he and I have discussed this and I think he has some ideas to help you with.

 

[TooSlick]

Sounds like a good way to hydrolock the engine if you aren't careful about getting all the stuff out of there before cranking it ....It's not compressible and you won't be able to ignite a large volume of the stuff!

I think it'll work, but just use 1-2 ounces per cylinder and then turn the engine over several with the plugs removed to get the stuff out of there, or let the excess evaporate over several days ....

If you had a borescope you could see if it had all leaked down into the crankcase?

 

[MolaKule]

I would remove the plugs and put in about 4 0z. of Neutra per cylinder, let it soak for a day and then crank it a few revolutions.

I would repeat this at least two times.

Keep the cylinders open for another day, and then replace the plugs. This is not to evaporate Neutra, but to make sure gravity gets the Neutra past the rings for sure.

Since this is an ester, I have yet to see it evaporate.

Make sure the engine fires up outside, since Neutra will decompose in the combustion chamber and becomes a combustion cleaner as well, with its resultant fumes.

Change oil within 500 miles.

 

[MolaKule]

I should add that I have used Neutra and LC for freeing up stuck rings in a tractor (gas, 4-cyl) as per the previous post.

I used the Neutra as the pre-soak (since it was a bit thinner) and LC for the final soak for those really stubborn problems.