Can seafoam do this? If not, what can??

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I have had great success with regular seafoam in the sump for the full OCI. Nothing changes overnight, but over 1500 miles things are visibly cleaner (need frequent filter changes).

Dribbling water in the intake while running, keeping engine running with throttle is an effective way of cleaning carbon.

Quick decarbonizing, however, can plug a cat.

You may have gotten gue onto the tips of the injectors, resulting in poor spray. If your tests check out, change the oil, make sure the plugs are happy, put some cleaner in the tank and drive it. Likelihood is it'll smooth out with mileage.

M
 
It may have been mentioned ...but check the brake booster line that you disturbed to do the charge of seafoam. Like you said, it feels like an air leak. Pull the dipstick on these engines and it'll stall.
 
I removed the oil cap and the idle changed, but no stall. Are you sure the dipstick will stall it? BMW 318is.

p.s. I drove it to the mechanic, and my friend driving behind me said the exhaust was stinkin like a ..... sumthin really bad

p.s.s The brake booster line is back and fine.. it has a small tear near the very tip, but that is all. I took a video of the engine and will upload it later. For some reason the vibrations were barely visible on cam

-MJ
 
It was that way on my 320i ..and the same on Shannow's 5series which is a lot newer. They operate the crankcase on full vacuum (or so I reason). It may have some vent regulation ...but pulling the stick or the cap resulted in it stalling.
 
I am pretty knowledgable in the BMW field.. you can call me an enthusiast.

I never tried pulling the cap off of my 328i, but that would make a good arguing point against the 318is if it did in fact stall.

HOWEVER, you guys say you have 320s, are we talking 1980s or older cars? Because a 90s 320i is very rare.. It was mostly only 318,325, and 328 sold in the United States. If your car resided from Canada then that would be a good explanation. If you are in fact talking about an older car.. Im talking 1994.

p.s. thx for all your input!
 
I can't remember if this has been mentioned, but have you reset the computer? If not, you probably should. and if you did, keep in mind it may take a while for the computer to "relearn" the proper operating parameters.

You said the brake booster hose had a little slit or something in it near one end. For me, that is enough to replace it. Especially with 190,000 miles on the engine. I replaced 23 feet of vacuum hose on my wife's '88 Nissan pickup, and it made a big difference in how it ran. But the surprising thing is it didn't run "bad" before, and we had no reason to suspect any problems. I replaced the hoses as preventative maintenance, and was really pleased with the result. Sometimes hoses may crack/dryrot without showing any real signs, but still have a very slight leak.

Off topic, but how do I add threads to my favorites on this new board software? Or do I subscribe just by replying to the thread? I want to be able to get email reminders like I used to on the old board.

Dave
 
Depending on where the brake booster line is attached to the manifold, it is possible you dumped the whole can into one cylinder. That crude on the one plug looks like emulsified carbon to me. When I seafoam my outboard motor in the driveway, a thick, black, goo drips out of the exhaust for days. You may need to run a carb. cleaner through the intake to facilitate removal. Otherwise it may just keep fouling that plug for a while. good luck
 
I removed the battery for a couple hours. Didnt do anything.

Looking into spark plug hole #1 it looks clean, while the others look dirty. Did anyone listen to the sound in the video? The engine vibration did not show up well in the video for some reason.

I sprayed some intake cleaner into the throttle body. I should of sprayed some in the brake booster line; I'll do that next.

I feel like changing the oil would have fixed this.. but I think Im just speculating.
 
exactly, you only cleaned one cylinder

Originally Posted By: another Todd
Depending on where the brake booster line is attached to the manifold, it is possible you dumped the whole can into one cylinder.
 
Awesome. Would it be wise to dump something into the spark plug hole? Like regular seafoam maybe? Or carb cleaner.

Im not gonna do anything for now.. just wondering though.
 
OK so the tests came back. 2 cylinders are down - with less than 50 compression.

Looks like an engine swap or car part out.

Really [censored] since we bought this less than 2 weeks ago. Now the question is, how did they make the car run good for a week, then this happen.

Is there something I could have done to blow the motor? Maybe because I didnt change the oil?

Beating myself up has no benefit right now.. just thinking of the next steps; and our as-is warranty.
 
Quote:
Now the question is, how did they make the car run good for a week, then this happen.


They could get it to run, but they could not compensate for low power output out of two cylinders.

Let's assume that it's the head gasket between two cylinders as I said before. Unless there's some way to do that from the outside ..then that's not likely. Let us say it's rings. You can get the plugs to hold up for a bit by running a lawn mower 2 stroke plug (HOT) and it will fire for a while ..but it won't stop the rings from holding back the combustion process ..and that should be showing itself somewhere else ..like the fresh air vent to the engine.

Like I said, if the two cylinders are adjacent ..then the gasket in between is probably the problem. It may have been that the PO had run into this before and knew that it would hold together long enough for him to sell it. It would be odd that, if warped or damaged in this area, that it didn't result in some other problem like coolant lose/leakage.

So either you should be able to "get it to run" ..at least temporarily ..or some event occurred since you bought it.
 
I did not do a compression test before I bought the car. But the engine was smooth and made no rattling or shaking. Seemed a little underpowered, but otherwise ran fine. Could it really be the not changing the oil? Which may have been very old?

The only other known issue with the car is the oil pan gasket leak.

I feel completely clueless right now. Should I confront the dealer who sold it to me?
 
Make sure your compression test is done right.

If the numbers remain consistently low on a few cylinders, you can isolate whether its a ring problem or valve problem by:

1) adding a few squirts of oil into the cylinder with low numbers, recheck compression. If numbers go up again, you have worn rings

2) do a leakdown test, that will isolate if you have a valve sealing problem.

I wonder if you have dislodged enough carbon to cause some valves not to seat properly??
 
I will be changing the oil, replacing coils, using Auto-rx and then see what happens.

If this doesnt work out, the engines are pretty cheap ~$500. Since most people upgrade to the 6-cyl in these cars. Now the problem is finding a mechanic nice enough to swap motors for around $500.
 
And to Gary - the car still runs, but idles and sounds like [censored]. Has little to no power if slowing down then taking off again. Exhaust smells like [censored] but surprisingly - no smoke AT ANY POINT. Only when doing the seafoam of course.

cant beleive we cant say c.r.a.p
 
The car was not misfiring in the video you posted, definitely sounded like a mechanical issue. I think the Seafoam caused some crud to get loose and it went somewhere where it shouldn't!
 
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