i think Auto-Rx helped me after losing coolant

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Last week my top radiator hose blew, split on top. First thing i knew was smelling coolant, then the power steering went in and out. uh oh

i was in the city thank God so i looked for a place to pull over, coolant gauge was not climbing so i felt better (wrong). i pulled onto a side street and looked for a curb, then the engine started missing/jerking, i've felt that before with another car so i just darted over to the curb and shut it down.

Open the hood and green everywhere on the left and saw the rip. let it cool for an hour half and bought replacement hoses and cleaned up the mess. I decided to fill from the thermostat too, and it took nearly a gallon of water, rad was about half gallon so my engine basically had no coolant for about 60 sec. it's a 4th gen LT1 camaro.

anyway, the car ran rough and later that day felt down on power. i thought maybe head gasket or coked rings. i had maxlife synblend only a month old in there. i should have dropped it and refilled but i poured in a whole bottle of Auto-Rx, and also dropped a bottle of Redline SI-1 and filled the tank.

Surprisingly, the driveability got better and better and after a few days it was back like it was. Got on it hard today and can once again burn the tires and pull like before. It may have been a combination but i credit the Auto-Rx more since i'm sure my poor oil was cooking to well done in that dry engine. thanks Frank!
 
Sounds pretty cool. We just finished the 1st clean in my girlfriend's corolla and so far so good. Nothing majorly different yet but still a ways to go. Has 140K miles so probably needs good cleaning.
 
Sounds like a similar success story here on BITOG. This case was a Ford Vulcan nmotor that had been severly overheated. Although the top end of the motor was still spotless clean, the two middle cylinders were way down in compression. ARX restored compression in the two low cylinders in short order. I will see if I can't find this string for all.
 
Ever hear of placebo effect? If I use ARX do I win the lottery? Point is, it is very hard to track down what caused what or stopped what when you dump something into the oil.
 
Dargo, the compression results speak for themselves, when I find this old thread. That's not placebo in my book.

Numerous UOA's have shown that wear metals are lowered when performing in situ cleaning. Placebo again?
 
I'd like to share my recent experience with Auto-RX. I'll try to present this testimonial as briefly as possible, while still providing important information.

In 1997 my father purchased a Taurus with the 3.0 Vulcan OHV engine. He drove it for several years. During that time he loaned it to a friend, who had a mishap with the car. The front right freeze plug burst during her drive. She was near my father's home at the time, and so she continued to drive it home several miles, without any coolant! This happend when the car had approximately 50k miles on it. My dad had it towed to the dealer, which installed a new plug, filled the coolant system and checked pressure, and returned the vehicle. My father continued to drive it for a few more years without incident.

Fast forward to 2005; my father sold the car to me with 60k miles on it. I did the routine 60k maintenance and used it as a daily driver. It always drove fine, and as this engine design was never a high-performance engine, I was content to just drive it and not worry. It recieved routine O/Fci's at 5k intervals under my care. It would regularly consume some oil, but nothing drastic; perhaps a quart in 5k miles.

Fast forward to late 2007. I decided to try some ARX engine treatment. I pulled the front valve cover to visually see what type of contamination was present; very little actually, at all. I had sent some digital pix to Gary Allen and he commented how "clean" the engine seemed. Still - the experiment seemed like the thing to do. I decided to take some compresison readings at Gary's urging.

I was not surprised, but very disappointed, at what I found. Of the six cylinders, #4 and #5 were way down on compression. #4 was at 120 psi, #5 was at 110 psi. The others were all in spec at around 165-180 psi. I noticed that these two cylinders (#4, #5) were adjacent to the freeze plug that had burst several years ago. I chalked up this poor compression to worn rings and/or scored cylinders. But for the sake of the experiment, I forged ahead.

The ARX trial was to see what performance could be achieved by ARX when the dosage was doubled, and the application phase cut short in mileage. In other words, I used two 12oz bottles for a 1k mile application run.

The fundementals were as follows:
*1997 Taurus 3.0 Vulcan with 87k miles @ application phase.
*PP 5w-30 synthetic, which already had 2k miles on it
*AAP "red" filter #3600 (a purolator rebrand)installed
*daily driving including a 50/50 mix of city/highway
*winter weather conditions typical of Indiana
*regular fuel used without any particular brand loyality
*vehicle driven with "normal" habits (not too hard or easy).

At 88k miles (on 2-8-08), it was time for the rinse phase and another compression check. The rinse phase oil is QS dino 5w-30 with another AAP filter.

Here is a synopsis of the compression pre-application and post-application, rated in PSI, with an ACTON compression gage. Multiple reading were taken per cylinder to average results, and rounded to the nearest "five" for ease of reading.

...........87k...88k
cyl 1:.....170...180
cyl 2:.....170...180
cyl 3:.....165...180
cyl 4:.....120...180
cyl 5:.....110...150
cyl 6:.....180...180

I AM ASTOUNDED!
As you can see, with no other influence other than the ARX treatment, there was SIGNIFICANT restoration of compression in the two defunct cylinders. Specifially, cylinder #4 gained 50% compression, all the way up to the equivilant of the others. Cylinder 5 gained 40 psi, up from 110 to 150, though not completely up with the others. In fact, ALL cylinders gained, and five of the six are at 180 psi (+/- 2psi in acutal readings)!

It is suspected that the ARX will continue to work it's "magic" on cylinder #5 during the rinse phase, which has just begun. I will take another compression check on #5 at 90k miles, when the vehicle is up for it's next routine maintenance, and the dump of the "rinse" oil.

I cannot stress this enough; I AM AMAZED at the performance of this product. I initially thought I had an engine that might necessitate a tear down. Instead, I have realized a very significant gain in engine compression. It is apparent now that the overheating incident so many miles ago had "coked up" the rings into the piston lands with detrimental varnish and other various buggery. The ARX performed exactly as advertised, freeing up the rings to do their job.

As I had experimented with ARX in the doubling of the dosage, and halving the apllication mileage, I cannot comment what a "normal" application might have done. I suspect that similar results would have been achieved, but just taken more time.

I will keep all posted of the progress of cylinder #5 when the 2k mile rinse phase it completed at 90k miles.

Kudos to Frank and the ARX!

Edited by dnewton3 (02/10/08 11:09 AM)
 
that's pretty impressive, i wish i could do a compression test without spending 3-4 hours, the time it takes to change plugs on this car w/ these mid-length headers. long tubes would be better

i had to pull the belt and clean it w/ light soap/water, also brakecleen'd the heck out of the pulleys and other stuff. used electronic parts cleaner on the electrical, my alt was affected i think since voltage was a little lower. i shot elec parts cleaner into the vents a couple times and it seems to be better

so chk/change your old hoses and don't trust the coolant temp gauge either cuz it needs coolant to measure. i had a low coolant sensor/lite but it went out a few years ago and i pulled it
blush.gif
 
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