So I bought this stuff on sale and apparently I can use it as a piston soak it is the spray kind. It says professional on it as well. What do you guys think of the stuff

Why are you wanting to soak your pistons?

Idk how it can get to be any better of a deal, it is only $2.97 at every walmart I have ever been at.

Anyone can write Professional on the can.

This is the big can its like a foot tall its about 5 bucks around here I paid 2.50

Yeah and its like a 16oz? or did they make a larger one?

The only ones I have seen are 16oz

It has always worked well removing varnish and sludge. Back in the carburetor days, B12 would remove all of the gunk when rebuilding one. It is a pretty good solvent--are the pistons out of the engine or still in it? Out of the engine there is no doubt it would remove most all of the varnish and sludge. I am not sure how well it will work with the pistons still in the engine.

It's mostly toluene, acetone, and alcohol. It's a fairly decent spray cleaner in that aspect but I don't know that I would go spraying directly into a cylinder. It lacks the light machine oil that SeaFoam and MMO have.

20oz. I'm doing the soak now. I figured it ain't going tobhurt anything. I fill the cylinders up but they are dry by time I go back out which was about 1hr 30 mins. Maybe because its a thin liquid? I have excellent compression I know that.

B9 Chem-dip would remove every bit of varnish, sludge, and gunk.

...and then you would continue to smell it on your hands for a week.

make sure you change the oil soon.

also photos are always good

What would you want photos of ill be changing the oil Monday.

Well just got done with the piston soak. I ended up at about midnight going and pouring mmo along with the b12 and the piston are all shiny and look like new. The dirtiest one is the first one and oddly enough It had the cleanest spark plug. But now they all look decent with 3of 4 looking like new. It took my car about ten minutes to start I suppose the rings weren't sealed anymore . Smoked like [censored]. And now it sounds great and runs great. This is by far the first piston soak that made me really think it was doing something. I hope for good results!!!!!

Very true! I began using rubber gloves after the first one that I rebuilt. For the money, I could not find another cleaner that did a better job...

Neat. Never seen this product....but very familiar with the "B-12 CHEMTOOL" that walmart sells......can't seem to find the other Berryman products anywhere......with all the hype behind Seafoam I guess :P Went into advance Auto Parts, and yea, they got like near [censored] every Seafoam product....but only quarts and pints of MMO, no compressor oil :P

What does the can say? Does it give usage directions or anything?


And yea, the "CHEMDIP" is now sold at my walmart....which is quite odd....I thought that was more geared towards carburetor tear downs and such :P Walmart is kind of "late" on that item.....would be better off putting gallon jugs of MMO in it's place haha.

FWIW I was a line technician at a large Toyota Dealership during the "sludge-monster" service campaign, During this I dealt with dozens of V6's with some of the worst sludge build up I have ever seen with my own eyes. On many of the engines affected Toyota would have us install a new short block and clean-up the sludged heads and reseal and reinstall. None of the 5 or 6 cleaning methods recommended by Toyota worked well but we found a local auto parts supplier that would sell us big drums of B-12 Chemtool that were big enough to dunk the entire head in and leave overnight. This was the ONLY 100% effective way that we found to clean this sluge off. Excellent chemical when used as intended.

I use B12 in my small engines to clean out the carb. I am rehabbing a neglected Tecumseh float carb for my old Ariens snowblower. I stripped down the carb and put the pieces in a cleaned out glass jar with a lid. I added enough of my 2 stroke mix to cover. I shook the jar several times and quit for the day. Today, I re-assembled the carb using a spray can of house brand carb cleaner. There was a 1/2 inch of sludge on the bottom of the jar. I contemplated soaking the carb in B12, but the can was 1/2 full and I didnt feel like driving to get more.

So, what's the update on this? This was BEFORE the bardahl fiasco, right?

I had low compression on a car I has rehabbing and tried a piston soak using 7 parts MMO to 1 part B12. Didn't solve my compression problem (worn rings), but when I had those same pistons out to replace the rings, the piston ring lands and rings were absolutely spotless. If there was any varnish or coking before the soak (not totally sure if there was) the MMO/B12 soak got rid of it.

B12 is great! I pour a can in my gas tank after every oil change to clean the injectors.

In my opinion, B12 and Berkebile Gum Cutter are the best cleaners.

my Buick dealership recommended this for my car. says its a great fuel system cleaner!!

It is the most effective air intake cleaner I have ever used.

B-12 Chemtool is outstanding stuff. I use it for gas engines and it keeps them running great. My other use for it is as a base for "Ed's Red" gun cleaner, 1/2 B-12 and 1/2 ATF. Be aware, it's virtually all solvents, so wear nitrile gloves and have gooood ventilation.