Using ATF to clean engine?

[lolsteve]

On the on going hunt to find a easy solution to Ladysteves sticky piston rings I've come across a practise where people put in a quart of ATF fluid in the engine oil as it apparently has really good cleaning properties

Speaking to a mx5 specialist the other day when he was working on fixing friends odd starting problem he swears by adding in a bit before doing an engine oil change

Anyone tried out this practise before?

[jammapic]

Sounds like something I'd not be too keen on trying....

[Matt]

If its before a change i cant see nonproblem, as long as its flushed through to make sure you got all tge crap out

[Rippthrough]

Quite common, it has a fair bit of detergent in it and being pretty thin makes it great at wetting out and cleaning surfaces. Wouldn't be something I would run the engine on with any load though as the friction level is much higher than engine oil.
To be honest, these days specific turbo diesel oil tends to be damned good at cleaning anyway, it's also got a lot of detergent in it, so just grab the thinnest TD oil you can and flush it through a couple of times.

[Stevo-trendy]

Put a small amount of diesel in your engine oil & run it for a few minutes then drop the oil & replace with new oil & filter cheapest way about it

Or put a engine flush treatment in would be ok , tbh if your piston rings are stickin & are gummed up the engine would be down on compression & probally worn & wanting a rebuild , another thing to look at is water injection whilst the engine is under load works well on diesel cars a lot of people running straight veg use it to avoid piston ring gumming

[lolsteve]

We tried some atf today. Turns out the diahatsu had like no oil in it so we put it about 1l of the atf in and idled for 20 mins. The oil that came out was blacccckkkkk.
Whilst idling we put a washing up bowl by the exhaust to collect the spat oil. The result being what looks like not just oil but mixed with a fair amount of water :/

[cully]

water would be condensation i expect the car was cold to start with?

[ConorTRG]

Put a small amount of diesel in your engine oil & run it for a few minutes then drop the oil & replace with new oil & filter cheapest way about it

I wouldnt be doing this imo.

[Stevo-trendy]

Done it on a few cars now never had a problem were not talking litres of diesel just a small amount , flushes all the crap out of the tappets , & once the new oil & filter is on the engine is always quieter

[toseland]

Diesel doesnt have cleaning properties.. it just thins out the oil,



Wynns do an engine oil flush.. which is stock detergent, might be worth a look

http://www.wynns.uk.com/Product.aspx?p=5...P_CONS_OIL

[Ben Jay]

Surely that opie oils bloke knows more about this

[lolsteve]

water would be condensation i expect the car was cold to start with?

The engine was up to temp, the fans had come on a couple of times to cool it down
Engine got quite tappy whilst running but then it was on a 50/50 mix of oil and atf

After draining the oil and refilling we started the car back up to get the fresh stuff up into the tappets etc. There didn't seem to be any oil spitting out the back after wards unlike before dropping the oil. However will have to check again when engine is cold as the engine was hot but the oil was cold when we ran it.

Stop smoke didn't help either it just made the quite very tappy from start up, guessing because it just thickens the oil up

[RetroPug]

H20 is a byproduct of combustion, even when up to temperature, so it might not be something to worry about.
The oil may have kept some from turning to steam and brought it into the pan.

I can't say whether or not that is excessive water though.

[r3k1355]

Looks excessive to me, especially as it was up to temperature.
Does it use any water?? If so could be the head gasket or a cracked block.