LC Piston Soak

Status
Not open for further replies.
B

Bobio

Joined
Feb 4, 2005
Messages
108
Location
Upstate, SC
Hey all,

Just wrapping up with the Auto-Rx rinse cycle and am planning on doing a piston soak treatment with LC.

The car is a 2001 Ford Mustang GT with the 4.6L modular V8 with 56K on the odometer.

Anyone done a piston soak on the 4.6 and is there anything I should watch for? Is overnight going to be sufficient for a couple of ounces of LC to work it's way past the rings in each cylinder? The problem is you can't see much looking down the spark plug hole. Right now it just looks like burnt toast down there
grin.gif


Anyway I am just paranoid about making sure all the LC gets past the rings since I have no way to verify it.

Thanks
 
I'd just make sure to turn the engine over with a ratchet several times after you install the LC into the cylinders. That should make it work past the rings easier.
 
2 ounces is about 60 cc's. I.e., close to the compression volume. I'd be worried more about hydraulic lock. Be careful here.
 
quote:
Originally posted by 427Z06:
2 ounces is about 60 cc's. I.e., close to the compression volume. I'd be worried more about hydraulic lock. Be careful here.
Click to expand...
I agree with this statement.

Before I did a piston soak I made sure to rig up a suction tube to my shop vac. After the soak I stuck the tube in to each spark plug hole till it bottomed out on the piston head and then sucked almost all of the fluid (and lots of black crud) out of each cylinder.

No problems.
 
quote:
Originally posted by 427Z06:
2 ounces is about 60 cc's. I.e., close to the compression volume. I'd be worried more about hydraulic lock. Be careful here.
Click to expand...
That is what I meant when I said I was paranoid about all the LC making it past the rings. I don't want to cause hydraulic lock.

I definitely plan to be careful
grin.gif


The tubing connected to a shop vac sounds like a great idea. I already use something like that to clean debris out of the plug holes before removing the plugs. I also plan to turn the engine over by hand several times in both directions during the process.
 
Are the tops of the pistons carboned up? If the A-RX cleaned up the ring pack, won't the LC just flow off the piston, or is it viscous enough to remain on the top of the piston.

If the combustion chamber is dirty, wouldn't FP60 use be better (or the old school water/seafoam through the PCV hose)?

Just conjecturing here.
dunno.gif
 
quote:
Originally posted by uconn1150:
Are the tops of the pistons carboned up? If the A-RX cleaned up the ring pack, won't the LC just flow off the piston, or is it viscous enough to remain on the top of the piston.

If the combustion chamber is dirty, wouldn't FP60 use be better (or the old school water/seafoam through the PCV hose)?

Just conjecturing here.
dunno.gif

Click to expand...
Yup, the tops of the pistons look like burnt toast
grin.gif


I have been running FP60 for a couple of months. I don't really think the small dose that goes into the tank is gonna do much for the carbon build-up on the pistons. At least not that I have noticed.

From the searches I have done here, others seem to have gotten good results doing an LC piston soak.
 
The piston soak sounds like an idea I want to try. But removing it afterwards is my concearn. I have something in my tool box to help me suck it out but I likely won't get every last drop.

Will LC burning off in the combustion chamber cause any problems?

How about initial startup? Will it be hard to start since the chambers have LC in them?
 
At 56k, why do a piston soak? Just start using the product regularily as intended....

I just did at 210k...
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dr. T:
At 56k, why do a piston soak? Just start using the product regularily as intended....

I just did at 210k...
Click to expand...
As I said in my previous posts there is a lot of carbon build-up in the combustion chamber. I have been using FP60 with every tank of gas for months now. At the regular maintenance dose I doubt FP60 is going to remove that much carbon. It is more of a preventative measure. At this point the piston soak is going to be my best bet.
 
I did the piston soak last summer on my 2001 Jetta TDI. Just turned the engine over in 5th gear to get it to push out afterwards. I was surprised that all the LC didn't soak through the rings overnight!

Anyhow, just turn it over by ratchet or if manual, using a wheel off the ground.

I'm not sure if it made it any better, but its piece of mind! The car did smoke a little after, but it wasn't as bad as when I sucked LC into the vac line of my honda 2 years ago!
 
I described that in the other topic, but I thought it is relevant here as well.
I don’t know... I recently soaked slightly carbonized spark plug in LC. It's been there for a couple of weeks now, and LC has done almost nothing to remove deposits. Again, it is not like the plug was covered in carbon. The plug from the other cylinder has been soaked in FP, and it cleaned deposits really well.
Some people suggest that LC cleans only when hot, and I do not disagree with that. Although how good an overnight piston soak would be if it didn't help with the plug?
dunno.gif
 
why not crank the engine with the starter,but disconnect the ignition. that will get rid of all the fluids.having fluid left over is good,it means that the rings are sealing.
 
No, he means turning the key, and cranking her with the starter - he beat me to the punch, actually. What would doing that accomplish other than splashing the soak liquid around in the combustion chamber a little bit? It's not going to clean the pistons or valves any better.

As far as getting the fluid out of there so as to avoid hydrolock, I like the idea of drawing it out by vacuum better than cranking.

Now, the follow-up question: Does anything work better than LC20 at dissolving those nasty, black piston deposits (products/ methods)?
 
I have to agree with yugrus. I had 6 plugs from a change, and decided to soak them for a week. I tried kerosene, LC, and acetone. The acetone and LC cleaned about the same, but for the week that the plugs were in the solution, I didn’t see the plugs getting cleaned very much. Stuff broke off, but I also swirled the plug in the solution probably 10 times during that week. I don’t know how much junk is going to get cleaned out off of a piston in one night of the stuff sitting there.

To VaderSS, I understand your question, but don’t understand the relevance. Anything that is on the plug will be on the piston. They are both in the same place.

I wonder what paint thinner would do?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

M
Piston Soak made smoking way worse ?
2
Replies
31
Views
5K
Hohn
MrBaumTastic
  • Locked
Piston soak questions (search was fruitless)
Replies
16
Views
2K
M56959
W
Did piston soak, worried about hydrolocking engine
Replies
2
Views
794
Brian123
P
  • Question Question
Subaru H4 piston soak possible?
2
Replies
37
Views
2K
ARCOgraphite
E
Best Method for Piston Soak?
Replies
6
Views
3K
BMWTurboDzl
Back
Top Bottom