Marvel Mystery Oil

[dbeardslee]

As the title implies I've been trying a little experiment with Marvel Mystery Oil. That stuff sure looks a lot like transmission fluid - smells like it when it burns too. I've been getting a little smoke from my breather, and a recent post suggested that this is probably caused by blow-by past the rings. I also have a little engine-chirp issue, which I think is coming from a valve lifter. I read some other stuff about MMO being used to free-up stuck rings, so I thought I would give it a try.

Anyway, Friday afternoon I put old Betsy out on the driveway (which is fairly steep) to get the tops of the cylinders as level as I could. I cranked the shaft around until all the cylinders were about the 1/2 way point, and then filled them up with MMO. I let it sit for two days, then removed the spark plugs and stuck 1/2" clear plastic tubing into the holes (fits perfect) with the other ends in a catch bucket. Cranked the kickstarter several times and got the remaining oil out of the cylinders - then I cleaned the plugs, reinstalled and started her up. Looked like I was fogging for mosquitos.

Everybody seems to be paranoid about running an engine with this kind of stuff in it, but it says on the bottle it's a normal additive, so I went for a little spin. I want it to stay in a while anyway to thoroughly clean the inside of the engine. What a difference! Transmission shifts easier and I didn't hear any chirping.

I'll have to run it a while before I'll be able to tell if I've still got smoke coming from the breather, but either way I'm glad I gave her this treatment. It works kind of like a leak-down tester. After two days cylinders 1 & 4 didn't have much MMO left inside them, while 2 & 3 didn't seem to have lost much. If I do have a ring problem, at least now I know which cylinders to keep an eye on. Anyway, just passing it along.

[trbig]

"I think is coming from a valve lifter"

Huh?? lol. I thought you were talking about a car until towrds the end. No lifters or pushrods in these.

I had a motor I tried that stuff in. It said it would clean everything out, so I religiously put in 2 ounces per tank of fuel. I had always wondered how an oil based product was going to clean my carbon out.. but blindly trusted them. When that motor spun a crank bearing and I tore it down, that was the most carboned up head/valves/pistons/exhaust that I have ever seen on any of these other motors I have seen the internals of.

I also had an old '72 Ford truck that had noisy lifters. I put some MMO in it (The oil) one time before driving it @ 30 miles to a buddy's house. It actually did quiet up all the lifters. I wanted to keep everything nice and lubed up, so while I was there, I put a can of STP oil treatment in it. I drove it home.. or tried. I got about a mile from the house, and it threw a couple rods out of the side of the block! lol. No idea if one had anything to do with the other... but I'm through using it. I have most of a gallon can left of it you can have next time I see you! lol.

Tod

[Montreux_Blue]

Someone posted about the same thing with Seafoam, poured it into each cylinder through the spark plug holes, not to long ago. I think it would work better.

[dbeardslee]

No lifters or pushrods in these.

trbig - Somebody better let yamaha know. Yamaha part # 1J7-12153-00-00 LIFTER, VALVE. Some people call 'em valve buckets.

I'm not generally a big fan of oil additives and wouldn't run this stuff on a regular basis, but, in this case it seems to have done good things. About the only additive I'm using regularly is 1oz of acetone to 5 gallons of gas. When I get ready to put her up for winter, I'll also add a little seafoam at that time.

Montreaux - I've run seafoam in the engine oil before, but didn't want it in this time around. When seafoam gets into your oil it REALLY thins it out. I wound up replacing a head gasket shortly after the seafoam treatment, as it cleaned out the gunk that was sealing the gasket . Oh well, valves needed lapped anyway .

MMO (which I'm pretty convinced is nothing more than transmission fluid) is a thicker liquid and doesn't seem to thin the oil. I recovered about a third of a quart, probably another third was burned or pushed out the exhaust port, and I figure about another third went past the rings into the oil. The instructions on the bottle said to use a %20 mix in oil, so it should be pretty close.

[TopCatGr58]

Hey DB,

Just like Seafoam, it is a very good devarnisher, breaks down sludge and such, so it breaks down petroleum doing this, and so I wouldn't recommend running it for very long in the engine, especially under any actual riding/load conditions. When it's suggested for running in the engine, it's just at normal operating temps with NO load. Because of Tod's experiences and such, I would highly suggest you drain the oil and change the filter before riding it anymore.

When MMO was developed, most regular car engines were only hitting about 4krpm, and single cam, water cooled, so a lot less stress on components than our high revving DOHC air cooled machines!

I run SeaFoam in my gas tank every few tankfuls with no problems.
T.C.

[Ivan]

Best stuff I have ever found for de-coking the rings is some junk called 44K. Its made by a company called BG. That's about all I know, other than the rep used to give us a quarter a piece for all the lids from their products. I put a can of that in my old Fiat, which had trouble with predetonation, and lots of carbon build up in the chambers. The 44K cleaned it up beautifully, and also de-coked the rings, which made the engine smoke from that day on. I guess the coke in the oil rings was doing most of the sealing. A double edged sword I guess. After tearing down the engine for new rings, it was beautifully clean inside though. hehe.

Also, that Fiat taught me a lesson. Synthetic oil doesn't smoke nearly as bad as mineral type oil. If you have a car that puffs blue smoke, and you want a better trade, put synthetic in it for a couple changes. Then when you tell the used car guy you run synthetic in it, it makes it sound even better.

[dbeardslee]

TC - I hear what you're saying about the rpms. Lately I've been trying to keep them down in an attempt to improve gas mileage. I read a thread on another site that was talking about trans fluid in the oil, and claimed an 8mpg improvement (in a cage). The individual making the claim said he put a quart of trans fluid in the oil, ran it 500 miles, and then changed the oil and noticed the improved mileage. I'm wondering what affect the MMO will have.

Ivan - thanks for the heads-up on the 44k. I never noticed any blue smoke coming out the tail pipe, just a little smoke coming out of the breather. I put a borescope into the spark plug holes and took a look at the top of the cylinders, and noticed some inconsitencies around the edges of the pistons on 1 & 4, which is why I put the MMO in to begin with. If I don't see any change, I might just give the 44k a try.

I'm going to run it a couple hundred miles with the MMO, change the oil, and then check the inside of the combustion chambers again and see what happens. I promise to be careful and watch the rpms, TC .

[Montreux_Blue]

Well when they put the Seafoam in the cylinders, I think they let it sit for a few days, then cranked it over a few times and changed the oil. I definitely wouldn't drive around with it in the oil.

[dbeardslee]

Montreaux - When I did it the last time I added the seafoam directly to the oil, and put about 200 miles on it. I don't recommend it, but other than the previously mentioned head gasket, it didn't do any damage.

I let the MMO sit for 48 hrs in the cylinders so it could do it's thing. I want to run it a while with the mixture in the oil so it can get at the rings from the other side, and finish whatever it started in the tranny. It really shifts a lot smoother with it in there.

I thought about putting seafoam in the cylinders but part of the reason I didn't is because it's so thin. I think it would have leaked past the rings at a much faster rate than the thicker MMO. I wanted it to stay in contact with the rings as long as possible, and I think the MMO is better in this particular application. That being said, the 44k stuff Ivan mentioned has certainly piqued my curiosity.

[fredintoon]

Redex!

Do they still make Redex upper cylinder lubricant? You used to get a small shot put in your gas tank for a penny extra a gallon or you could buy a one pint tin of it and do a "Redex decoke" which involved taking off the car's air filter, revving the engine to full throttle and pouring the stuff into the carb until the engine nearly stalled, let the engine recover and repeat until the whole can had been used. You couldn't see for smoke for blocks around afterwards. You could persuade yourself it must have done some good, right?

[GNEPIG]

Hmm, it will be interesting to see what reaction the cork/ fibers that make up the clutches will have.

good luck

[trbig]

Fred,

Johnson/Evinrude make a can of cleaner that sprays a foamy substance. You do like you say.. spray with the engine running directly into the carb intake and stopping before it dies.. using the whole can. Turn off the motor and let it sit a while.. then fire it back up. It too will smoke up your yard, the neighbors yard, and every yard in the neighborhood! lol. It works great for 2-stroke motors, but can be used with 4-stroke motors also to remove carbon.

Just don't ask me the name of it right now.. lol.


Tod

[webbcraft2150]

Mercury Marine has some stuff called Power Tune. Spray it in a running engine till it kills it. Let it sit for 'bout and hour, take the batteries out of your smoke detectors and fire it up. I have brought alot of 2 and 4 strokers back to lift with this stuff. You hafta change plugs after using it. I actually had chunks of carbon coming out of open marine exhaust systems and spark plugs choked off with carbon chunks when using this stuff.

[tarzan]

When I was in trade school back in the early 80's, one of our instructors told us trans fluid or water will remove carbon.As described above you have to run high r's and pour it in the carb.Trany fluid will smoke up the whole block and water will steam up the place.They both work though.
I ran some seafoam through two tankfulls of gas on my XS earlier this year
but I puuled the carbs off to adjust the floats a week or so later and the inside of the bowls looked dark like they were etched or something.I havent used it since.I haver noticed everyone kind of looks at it like some miracle juice though.And I havent seen anyone who claims it damaged anything though,so maybe it just me.

[dbeardslee]

Tarzan - An old friend of mine used to use trans fluid in his truck's carb annually. It would clean the carb and the cylinders and lay down a smoke screen suitable for amphibious operations . The more I think about MMO, the more I think that's all it is - trans fluid with maybe a few other things in it - sure smelled like buring trans fluid when I fired her up. Probably why it makes the tranny shift so much better.

I cast no aspersions on seafoam - it's good stuff. When you add it to the gas tank it's going to clean everything it touches. If you've got rust in the tank it'll loosen that up as well and some of those ultra fine particles will make it past filters and screens and land in the bowls. I got the same kind of results you describe until I sealed the tank and ran enough of it through for the machinery to run out of crud. I also try never to run on res (or prime if you've got the stock petcocks) as rust, water, and other junk collects in the bottom of the tank. On res or prime you draw from the bottom of the tank and that crud heads straight for the carbs.

This spray-in marine stuff sounds interesting. It's interesting how much of this stuff translates between marine and motorcycle applications. My bud just bought a yamaha jet boat at the beginning of last summer. It's powered by 2 yamaha 1100cc marine engines of all things. If you think about it, small boats and bikes have about the same season, and the engines sit for about the same amount of time when it's cold out. Probably got a lot of the same issues. Redex sounds like it's worth investigating as well.

I'm not worried about MMO damaging the cork on the pressure plates. 200 miles with seafoam in the oil didn't touch 'em and I'm pretty sure seafoam is a more aggressive solvent. Don't know if it will make the clutch slip or not, but I'm not going to try to put enough of a load on her to find out. Just going to run it a few hundred miles nice and easy and then change the oil and filter again (for like the 10th time this season). Might do a little experimenting after that with small amounts of MMO in the oil if the tranny shifting benefits don't last after the oil's changed. I'm thinkin' 4-8 ounces should do the trick.