Auto Rx? Anyone one tried this stuff?

[Bleyseng]

On BobistheOilGuy's site I saw this Auto Rx stuff to clean your motor. Thought I would try it in my 78 Ford pick up. You pour it in and drive for 500 miles and it cleans the inside of the engine. At 500 mile you change the oil and filter and away you go.......
Sammy, I know you are going to slam this product so what is in it?
Is it bad for your motor?
Geoff

[toman]

Supposedly, some amount of ATF mixed in your oil works too. Personally... my engine's doing fine.

[J P Stein]

Back in the "old days", motors used to sludge up with deposits of....er ...sludge. Unless you've been using a bunch of old oil saved up from the 50s/60s, sludge shouldn't be a problem.

If it is sludgy (love that wurd), it's prolly best left sticking to all your engine goodies rather than all be cut loose into the oiling system.

Sammy is prolly out waxin' his 9eleben (or maybe hunting/gathering wine & cheese), gettin' ready for some gittogether with his CW freinds. I figured I could fill in fer him
since I cain't speel either.

Bobistheoilguy? Gimme a break.

[sammyg2]

Dunno nuthin' bout it. caint say yea or nay, but it makes me nervous.

Is your engine all sludged up?

Like our friend to the north stated, years ago sludge was a problem because we (or our parents) were running non-detergent oil in cars that has less than satisfactory oiling and filtering systems. I can almost remember when oil filters first came out, I bet JP can :-)

Fast forward to today, it is difficult to find non-detergent oil.

In addition to the detergents (solvents), they are adding extra stuff to make it more slipperly like. Most engines don't get all sludged up as bad as they used to, and if they do, who cares as long as it doesn't hurt the engine?
I don't want it on my rings, but unless it gets really deep in the sunp it aint gonna do nuthin but clog up a filter now and again.
If I were worried about it I would run some good synthetic oil for a while.

[Zeke]

You guys have got to read this:
Stupid People

[Bleyseng]

As a matter of fact it is fairly sludged up. Its a 78 Ford Pickup POS a got from my father. It burns oil pretty good (90k) and I finally figured out why it takes soo long to get to warm. He had installed the thermostat in backwards. Course he had been complaining for years that the heater didn't work very well. So the engine is pretty tired and from my dad pouring the cheapest oil he could buy it is pretty sludgy inside. Though I might give this Auto RX a try. I didn't say I wanted to put in the 914...
Geoff

[hardflex]

My brother just rebuilt his mid 90's chevy p/u 4x4 with 140k and his 350 engine was caked with sludge, bad. I think that certain cars have low margins for error, and after high engine load conditions then engine shutdown the residual heat in the engine can raise oil temps and cook the oil (remember the mobil1 commercial with the frying pan), especially if you use a low quality oil.

from what i've read, most oil additives are not lubricants, so you weaken the oil's properties when you dilute them with stuff like this. and if they work as claimed, could your filter hold all the freed up sludge released into the oil? probably not.

I think i'd concur with the above post, add some synthetic and watch the oil coloration for darkness to know when to change filter and or oil again, until it's clean.

PD

[Dave at Pelican Parts]

I can almost remember when oil filters first came out, I bet JP can :-)

Heck, JP can remember when they invented dirt!

--DD

[J P Stein]

Whadayamean, they? *I* invented dirt......I gots the residuals all over me.

I do remember when guys had to go buy an oil filter set-up ( that took a roll of TP for a filtering element) and add them to their cars.

From what I read, most of the additives in modern oils are
detergents and stuff (god knows what) to make them multi-viscosity.

Nuther thing:
Lousy oil is gettin' real hard to find. Had a hell of a time trying to find non-detergent oil to break in my rebuilt motor.......yup, still the way to go (IMO).

[sammyg2]

Oh, sure Kevin, just when we were getting into some serious BS
you come along and tell us we should do it the smart way :-)

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

Originally posted by J P Stein

I do remember when guys had to go buy an oil filter set-up ( that took a roll of TP for a filtering element) and add them to their cars.

LOL, this is exactly what my buddy used to do with his 1951 Buick Special. Roll of TP for the filtration element. That was a awesome car. Straight 8 cylinder engine that ran incredibly smooth, it had a hood that was so big, you had to open it from side to side.

[VARam1500]

The community over at dodgetrucks.org talks about using something called SeaFoam to clean engine internals of carbon.

Apparently the idea is to feed it to the engine slowly at first (either by pouring it into the throttle body or putting a vacuum line into the can and letting it get sucked in) and then as the engine works hard to digest it you dump in the rest (which causes a stall). Wait a while. Then change the oil, filter, and spark plugs. By now the foam has died down enough that it will start again.

I know a guy at work who did exactly the same procedure on a Beetle with an entire can of carb cleaner! He said he could tell a difference in the way it ran after he did it.

I don't think I'll be tryin' either of these methods anytime soon, but at least the foam product is made for it (versus the automatic transmission fluid).

--Case...

[Jared at Pelican Parts]

This reminds me of something I saw on SpeedVision about the 55 Chevy. Apparently they had a huge problem with burning oil. There was a factory bulletin advising that dealerships pour Bon-Ami down the carburetor in order to roughen up the cylinder bores to stop burning oil.

[hardflex]

Man, Kevin, that's a lot of stuff in your oil I'll bet that TP filter would clean it all out. It was called a "Frantz" I think.

[sammyg2]

Imagine a VW type 1 that has no oil filter (only a screen), over 100,000 miles, and has only seen non-detergent oil.
My first bug was in that condition. I cleaned the inside of the crankcase with a scraper.

Ug-----leee.