New tricks for an old rodeo

[bighops2000]

After reading in several of the forums, several people have been advised to shy away from using additives such as sea foam in the oil. My rodeo is 165k miles young. it doesnt burn oil....at all. it just ticks. should i NOT use the sea foam every oil change b/c of the high milage....which hasnt stopped the ticking yet btw. but i was about to start religiously running a cleaning cycle just before each oil change. I think my baby can handle it if i do that. although i did hear that if you clean out some sludge that was helping hold up a lifter, you could colapse the lifter and end up worse off than you started. is this why high milage cars shouldnt do it?? i need advice but remember.... its not burning oil, no problems, runs great.......jus ticks a tad.

[Ramblin Fever]

I know I've been looked at, or at least I feel that I am, paranoid when it comes to using "anything" other then oil in the crankcase.

Seals, aside from the headgasket, are the least of my concerns - with that stuff, I'm more leary of breaking off big junks of anything and sending it to clog the oil pickup screen. There's no guarantee it'll all come out with an immediate oil change following, either.

Many are not having any problems, but I've heard Sea-foam and others being refered to as mud-bath, or something similar to that effect. Where they release a lot of crud within a short amount of time, only problem is, even if you're not driving that truck and just letting it idle, that "crud" is cycling through the bearings and what ever else.

I did it twice, won't do it again. My take is it didn't accumilate overnight, and therefore I don't want it to "clean" up overnight either.

I am however, going to run a high detergent synthetic oil with a few really close OCI's for a while. Yes, I stand the same chance, i.e. something clogging my pick-up screen, but at least I know it's not thinning like water - that Sea-foam really THINNED out, much more then I had thought it would and after the 1st time of having driven with it for 10-15 minutes, I can see why others only stated that they idled there's.

I can only hope with having done every 3K OCI's, that my engine has very little crud inside, hopefully nothing to worry about.

[anthonyn]

Originally Posted by Ramblin Fever

I am however, going to run a high detergent synthetic oil with a few really close OCI's for a while. Yes, I stand the same chance, i.e. something clogging my pick-up screen,

An oil's ability to CLEAN is highly-overated. Even a high detergency oil like shell Rotella or Chevron Delo, has limited cleaning ability. They are good to keep a clean engine clean, but I've yet to see any strong evidence of real cleaning.

Sounds like you should run an AUTO-RX cleaning cycle. This product is made of esters (a molecule of an organic compound that is in many oils already. These compounds have the ability to clean metal). It actually liquefies sludge so that it does not clog anything. It cleans slowly, over thousands of miles, but thoroughly. It not only does not harm seals, it actually renews them. Many people have stopped main seal leaks using this product. It does not thin out the oil like seafoam.

Here is one user's test that showed actual compression changes after auto-rx usage: http://rms13.com/

I ran auto-rx on my 95.5 Rodeo about a year ago. Since then every oil change I monitor the oil condition and cut open the filter. I'm convinced my engine is super clean. In fact I'm 2k miles into my latest oil change and the oil color is virtually like new. The last filter I cut open was far cleaner than pre-autorx filters. I use the purolator pureone's which are known to have excellent filtering capabilities. I plan to do an auto-rx cleaning every 30k miles as part of the 60k/90k/120k major services. In the mean time, I just do frequent oil changes with havoline conventional oil. So far its worked out great!

[rodeo02]

Originally Posted by anthonyn

..Sounds like you should run an AUTO-RX cleaning cycle...

Another BITOG guy I take it? . I've never heard any complaints from auto-rx, but that stuff is EXPENSIVE! I'll admit, I was hooked (thought I was anyway) to lube control and fuel power for a few years, but once I'm out of stock, I'm not sure I'll get any more. When I look back, I've had many engines outlast the vehicle without adding anything to the oil. An that was the oil from 15-20yrs ago .
G/luck
Joel

[bighops2000]

so no one thinks its any worse adding it to a 165k truck than a 90k truck.......so verdict

a. milage doesnt matter
b. high milage matters dont add
c. adding is ok if truck runs fine

a,b, or c.

ALSO HAS ANYONE HEARD THE MYTH OF ADDING BRAKE FLUID TO YOUR ENGINE TO SWELL UP SEALS. IVE HEARD THAT THIS CAN WORK TO SEAL UP RINGS AND CRAP. BUT I ALSO KNOWTHAT BRAKE FLUID INGREDIENTS CAN ULTIMATLY CAUSE RUBBER (MOST SEALS MATERIAL) TO BECOME BRITTLE OR PERHAPS CORRODED. JUST WINDERING IF THE MYTH CIRCULATED TO ANYWHERE OTHER THAN NC