I had a little bit of an oil control problem.. probably lack of pcv and a manual tranny helped pull oil past the guides. So last time I was home and pulled the intake because of a little mishap I noticed the valves were pretty nasty with oil gunk.

So I was wondering if the old water trick for cleaning combustion chambers worked on the back of the valves too what with them getting pretty hot and all. How about top engine cleaner? Is it all that its cracked up to be?

 

Just stick a hose in there and let it run until the water comes out the tailpipes. That'll work.

How bad is it? They do get some buildup naturally anyway.

 

I hope he picked up on your sarcasm there


a spray bottle works well.

 

There will be CARBON build up in the exhaust ports since its a by-product of the combustion process, but there shouldn't be oil in the intake or very minimal. I say take em off and take em apart and check your guides. Quite possibly a valve job.

 

A foaming butyl cellusolve cleaner works great for removing deposits from valves, combustion chambers, and the intake. Just spray it in the intake until the engine dies, fill the intake, then crank it some more to distribute the cleaner. Let is soak and loosen the deposits for an hour or more, then start the engine to clear out the deposits. At that point, the water injection trick will really clean anything that remains.

Unfortunately, that chemical (ethylene glycol monobutyl ether) is getting more difficult to find in consumer packages. Shell Oil used to offer a "Combustion Chamber Cleaner" that was nearly pure butyl cellusolve, and it worked great. That was years ago (and probably dates me) and may no longer be available. Some specialty cleaners for removing graffiti, paint remover/cleaners, and oven cleaners still use butyl as a primary ingredient. They are flammable, which is O.K. in your engine. Once you stall the engine on the cleaner, restarting will create a lot of smoke until the cleaner and deposits are cleared out, but the cleaners shouldn't cause any problems with the rhodium or palladium coating on the catalyst bed.

 

GM Top Engine Cleaner works pretty good, but they call it something else now, like "Cleens" or something like that.

 

vader. is Sea Foam a good cleaner?

 

Maybe he can get some of that over in Japan and take it home with him. I know they have weird environmental laws there, maybe for some odd reason you can still get stuff like that there.

Pablo, you going to bring your ride out here or what? No fun leaving it in FL all the time... Then I cant race ya and beat ya with my vert, if the track is still there when you get back.

 

This can really be a problem. I had an 024 Omni back in the early 1980s with the VW Rabbit motor. There was a known problem with the valve seals and -- WOW -- what a mess it made under both the intake and exhaust valves. At that time you could see the problem in junkyard heads.

That was about the time that Chevron's R&D came out with Techroline, which is a carbon scavenging agent and fuel system cleaner. I got rid of the car before Techroline became commercially available but that would be a good idea to try. Why not contact Chevron directly? Their tech department would probably know for sure.

 

When I was selling industrial chemicals out West, I and the other tech reps convinced a lot of formulators to switch over to the corresponding propylene based solvents (we sold EB/Butyl too but the margins were lower). There are a whole slew of them now and they should offer similar (probably now superior) performance. Arcosolv PTB was one of them.

 

i dont need a valve job, besides valve jobs dont typically do anything to the guides as far as I know unless they knurl them which is ****ty or install brass wall inserts... anyhow they are not that worn the heads have like 10000 miles on them since the last rebuild maybe. Im pretty positive its my lack of pcv.

anyhow, i know the exhausts will get carboned up im fully aware of what that looks like i ported the heads myself with 5000 miles on them. As for the intakes, its definately oil and its definately bad.. worse than when i recieved the heads to port them after those miles on another car with an auto and pcv system

as for cleaner.. I actually used oven cleaner on the heads while i was porting them that worked like a champ.. If i could find something like that in a liquid form that would just flow down the runners onto the valves that would be great. I liked that stuff so much I joked about getting an EASY OFF Racing banner for my car hehe.

Ill keep my eyes peeled for the ethelyne glycol monobutyl ether stuff
or the ptb stuff
hehe maybe ill just mix some antifreeze and ether together.


oh and madmax, course im bringing it out there

and unless you modded the vert youll be the one getting beat

btw im gonna be back in almost a month! See ya then

 

Be careful what you pour down the passages. Oven cleaner is fine for iron heads off the vehicle but it will destroy aluminum heads and pistons in short order. I didn't mean to imply that you should pour ethylene or propylene based cleaners straight down the cylinders. You really have to be careful with solvents and oil seals, gaskets, etc. Some can cause major swelling and leaks (they would leak past the rings into the sump) -- you'd probably have to pull the motor to remedy all the damage.

I don't know what cam etc. you are running but if the valve train geometry is a little off (it would still run of course) that could put a lot of side load on the guides and abnormally wear them in well under 10,000 miles.

A temporary solution for the pcv problem is to run a breather or even just a draft tube. If you are still burning oil after that then it is likely guides, seals, or rings.

 

We'll see about that. Your current best is barely better than mine.

 

You probably won't find it by that name on a product label, here are some other names it goes by:


Eastman EB Solvent
Butyl CELLOSOLVE
Dowanol EB
Butyl OXITOL
Glycol Ether EB
2-Butoxyethanol

 

rug doctor hi traffic carpet cleaner contains propylene glycol monobutyl ether, as does their upholstery cleaner, some generic store brand glass cleaners, 409 glass & surface cleaner, easy off oven cleaner

orange blast degreaser has butoxyethanol, so does kiwi fast act aerosol shoe cleaner, greased lightning all purpose cleaner, simonize tuff stuff foam cleaner, and some types of windex/generic glass cleaners

I am not sure of the concentrations in these products without actually taking the time to look them up, but if need be I can probably provide that information.

In case you're wondering I work with hazardous material documents for a major retailer, have a data base of all this stuff at my desk

 

Heheh thats interesting, I suppose you are the man to talk to for someone wanting to make a bomb out of household items

 

Nope, it's still called Top Engine Cleaner available in spray or pour type cans.

GM part numbers: 1050002 & 1052626

 

What I actually use to clean the top end of a running motor is Mercury Marine's Power Tune, its about 8 or 9 bucks a can at any Mercury Marine parts dealer. Works great.

heh bombs....dont tell that to my bosses