ARX & Aluminum Engines

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: sprintman
Very agressive solvents, not what engine seals like.


MMO has been tested and is harmless to engine seals. IIRC it is in their FAQ section, or a phone call to their tech person will reveal the answer.


My moms car only started leaking after I used MMO in it.


Thanks AD.

Not to violate any board rules by posting a link this info was copied from the MMO message boards and answers some questions. They go into more about seals in other threads IIRC but this might help.

This was from Mr. Kelly who is the tech guy for MMO.

Some or our regular commentators have already answered most of your questions. However, a few other comments may be in order:
1. Marvel Mystery Oil is not a solvent in the tradional sense of the word. MMO is an oil mainly. It does contain some tradional solvent in order to thin the viscosity of the oil to approximatel a straight weight oil. Also, it is not considered a detergent based oil in that it does not contain high base number sulfonates. MMO will provide cleaning action to the crankcase, but it does so by different chemistry than detergent oils.
2. MMO contains additional friction modifiers to prevent metal-to-metal contact. Therefore, it improves the motor oils friction reducting properties.
3. MMO has been tested with various seal material that is found in most automotve engines and power trains and is compatible with all of them.
4. As stated above, because to the additional friction modifiers and other ingredients in the Marvel Mystery Oil, using it does not degrade the motor oil but enhances it.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
The engine had been run on synthetic blend its whole life, and had an Auto RX clean and rinse done on it. You'd think it would have started leaking then, not after the use of MMO.


I had a very small oil leak, did 2 A-RX clean and rinses, filters were light, in fact I wasted a few of them thinking they'd be clogged up. The engine ran good before and after. The leak had stopped for a little while, and after the final A-Rx rinse it came back again. Do I blame A-Rx? These things happen. Many times you get a false seal in an engine from a little bit of junk, removing the junk can also remove the false seal. Sometimes you get lucky and they stop, me I'm not a lucky guy!

How many miles on the engine, and were is it leaking from?

 

[MolaKule]

Regarding varnish:

In addition to what I stated earlier, varnish can form on valves and valve body components in an ATF as well, due to high temperature oxidation of the ATF through the bubbling of vapors through the oil. 30k OCI's and a maintenance dose of ARX will help alleviate this problem.

In well maintained engines, a good oil and an occasional maint. dose of ARX will help keep sludge and varnish at bay.

Varnish on rocker panels and other nonmoving parts is purely a cosmetic issue.

Varnish usually forms on cooler surfaces that have been fogged with very hot oil vapors. Unfortunatley, these cooler surfaces never get "washed" with flowing oil, so they don't see much cleaning from the oil.

Varnish is a tough critter and about the only thing I have found that will remove a heavily varnished surface is straight LC20 or the old fashioned carb cleaner, but the old carb cleaners have crysilic acid and they really stink.

ARX should clean Al meatals as well as ferrous metals.

 

[c3po]

Leaking oil with AutoRX
T-Keith


Registered: 01/20/04
Posts: 4783
Loc: MN I did not plan on following the "seal repair instructions" because I did not have any leaks until I put in the AutoRX. No offense, but your post does not come off well. I buy a product that is supposed to help seal leaks, instead it causes them, and then when I ask for help, you suggest using the same product to cure the problem it created in the first place.

I realize the circumstances may be different, but that it how your post sounds.


It seems if you use any oil additive to clean up your engine that leaks may appear.

 

[chevrofreak]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
The engine had been run on synthetic blend its whole life, and had an Auto RX clean and rinse done on it. You'd think it would have started leaking then, not after the use of MMO.


I had a very small oil leak, did 2 A-RX clean and rinses, filters were light, in fact I wasted a few of them thinking they'd be clogged up. The engine ran good before and after. The leak had stopped for a little while, and after the final A-Rx rinse it came back again. Do I blame A-Rx? These things happen. Many times you get a false seal in an engine from a little bit of junk, removing the junk can also remove the false seal. Sometimes you get lucky and they stop, me I'm not a lucky guy!

How many miles on the engine, and were is it leaking from?


It just rolled over 100,000 this past week. It's leaking from the oil pan gasket, which is constantly submerged in oil, and somewhere under the right side cylinder head. There were actually drops of oil hanging from all of the rear oil pan bolts. I'd never seen that before.

 

[demarpaint]

Like I said before, it could have been a coincidence or some dirt that was cleaned out. You could try snugging the pan bolts slightly, I've stopped leaks that way a few times before. Any time you clean up an engine, change to a thinner viscosity oil, or change from dino to a synthetic oil you run the risk of leaking. As a side note changing to synthetic oil doesn't cause leaking, but if there is an area that was marginal synthetic oil can find its away out.

Sometimes after a cleaning, they leak, then stop leaking. Mine stopped then started again.

 

[chevrofreak]

It uses RTV instead of a gasket, so I don't want to risk squeezing all of it out

 

[panthermike]

I decided to give MMO a try after hearing positive things about it on this board.

The OCI was 4100 miles, MMO was in there for 1700 miles. Oil used was PP. I must say I'm surprised with the oil color, looks like diesel oil.

Here's two pics;

 

[Mamala Bay]

My ARX cleaning phase was very dark also. But also my engine saw but Amsoil from 1,000 miles. My engine was darn clean and no sludge or vanish make up. ARX was used after 100,000 miles and left in for 8,000 miles. One thing I did notice was my EaO filter was very heavy during the cleaning phase.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: chevrofreak
It uses RTV instead of a gasket, so I don't want to risk squeezing all of it out

Good idea!

Frank

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: panthermike
I decided to give MMO a try after hearing positive things about it on this board.

The OCI was 4100 miles, MMO was in there for 1700 miles. Oil used was PP. I must say I'm surprised with the oil color, looks like diesel oil.

Here's two pics;

Wow, I did 2 clean rinse cycles with A-Rx following the instructions to the letter, I even changed filters at the mid point thinking they'd be loaded up with all kinds of goodies. They were just like any other filter I took off, the oil I drained was the same as any oil change I had done to it. This was on a 160,000 Ford 3.0L Aerostar, that was treated with MMO most of its life. I'm willing to bet the engine was quite clean based on other vehicles I've owned and serviced the same way.

I was hoping to stop an oil leak, which did stop for a little while and has since returned. I'm running the A-Rx maint dose.

I've said before you can't clean something that isn't dirty, OTOH looking at that oil that engine needed some cleaning! Good job!

 

[c3po]

panthermike,

I saw the pics and that oil was very dark, I was wondering if you had done any arx treatments on this car, is your engine made out of aluminum.

 

[panthermike]

Originally Posted By: c3po
Re: ARX & Aluminum Engines [Re: chevrofreak]
panthermike Online content


Registered: 04/01/08
Posts: 1139
Loc: Phoenix, AZ
I decided to give MMO a try after hearing positive things about it on this board.

The OCI was 4100 miles, MMO was in there for 1700 miles. Oil used was PP. I must say I'm surprised with the oil color, looks like diesel oil.

I saw the pics and that oil was very dark, I was wondering if you had done any arx treatments on this car, is your engine made out of aluminum.



I have done two ARX treatments. From what I've read the engine is aluminum.

 

[c3po]

You did 2 arx treatments and your oil came out looking like tar after using MMO for 1700 miles.

Did your oil ever come out dark on the 2 treatments of arx, meaning did they come out as dark as the pics you had put up for us to see.

I am wondering since arx is heat activated and we know that aluminum dissipates heat, that maybe this is another reason arx has a hard time with aluminum.

 

[Falcon_LS]

I'm just going to chime in here with a couple of pictures of my aluminium cylinder head, after my engine (Mitsubishi 6G72) has gone through four Auto-Rx treatments.

The actual purpose of the treatments was to eliminate an oil burning issue I had, which I later resolved by a cylinder head overhaul, and not to clean up the engine.

Having said that, for most of its life this engine has seen nothing but 20W-50 weight oil, which is extremely thick. It wasn't until I took over the maintenance that this engine started seeing thinner oil (5W-30, 10W-30, 5W-40 and lately 0W-40 respectably). Looking at the oil passages, it's had me dazzled as to how oil as thick as 20W-50 actually made it through. I reckon what's happened is a lot of oil was left in the cylinder head area, which was too thick to travel to other parts of the engine or drain back down, and ended up being baked into the aluminium:

Most of it is heavy varnish, and Auto-Rx must have cleaned up a lot of the rubbish that was in there, because the oil filters were pretty heavy at the end of the intervals. Taking the valve covers off other engines, including other Mitsubishi 6G72s, you can scoop out the sludge with a spoon. StevieC and I have had quite a few discussions about Auto-Rx, and we both came to the conclusion that the recommended mileage intervals should be doubled to acheive the best possible results.

 

[demarpaint]

Many times in cleaning something via chemicals a change in chemicals is a good idea. Maybe the MMO got some remaining junk out of the engine. Look what happens when guys change over to RL oil after running a premium synthetic and doing reasonable OCI's. Just a thought.

How does the car run now?

 

[c3po]

Falcon LS, you did 4 treatments of arx

1) 2500 miles for the Clean Phase X 4 cleanings equals 10,000 miles.

2) 3000 miles for the Rinse Phase X 4 rinses equals 12,000 miles.

This whole process took 22,000 miles, and that is what your cylinder heads look like.

If you used 4 bottles of arx, so $25.00 a bottle, the pics show what $100.00 worth of arx did for you.

I have seen many other valvetrain pics like this from people who have used arx and all of the cylinder heads were made out of aluminum.

 

[ADFD1]

Wow after 22,000 miles of a treatment I would have thought it would have looked better than that. Looks like in this case heat and that thick oil were not your friends.

Not all of the top of that engine is aluminum, the cam, springs and retainers are not aluminum. They look pretty funky too.

I think Demarpaint nailed it, a change in cleaning products might have cleaned the rest of that engine up. Too bad you didn't try it!

 

[Falcon_LS]

Originally Posted By: demarpaint
How does the car run now?


She runs like a champ, especially with 98 RON fuel and a maintenance dose of TC-W3.

I'm also running a quart MMO in there right now with Motorcraft 10W-30, for a full interval.

Having said that, I'm sure Mobil 1 0W-40 will keep the engine cheap.

 

[demarpaint]

Originally Posted By: Falcon_LS
Originally Posted By: demarpaint
How does the car run now?


She runs like a champ, especially with 98 RON fuel and a maintenance dose of TC-W3.

I'm also running a quart MMO in there right now with Motorcraft 10W-30, for a full interval.

Having said that, I'm sure Mobil 1 0W-40 will keep the engine cheap.

Glad to hear it, in the end a good running vehicle is what this is all about!