Piston Carbon Soaking & Cleaning
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- Опубліковано 28 гру 2021
- This video documents steps I've taken to effectively clean the heavy carbon build up off the piston
top.
I've tried SeaFoam spray through the air intake, but that was not as effective as soaking the piston top with a carbon cleaning solution (Chem-Dip) overnight. It literally melted away the carbon off the piston top.
But be extremely careful not to hydrolock and kill the engine by leaving cleaning liquid in the combustion chamber. More detail on this is covered in this video. - Навчання та стиль
WE used to do this back in the old days using Redex. Warm engine to operating temperature (oil as well). Then take out coil packs/spark plugs. Pour 25ml to 50ml Redex down plug holes. Leave to soak for a few hours. Pull out EFI fuse. Then turn engine over but making sure you cover the spark plug holes with an old towel or rag lying across the top of the plug holes (don't shove them in the holes as compression when turning can pull the rag in). Excess fluid is removed after several 10 second cranks from out the plug holes. Some people then refill with same amount of Redex and leave for another few hours. This is in the hope that by cranking the engine some of the fluid manages to get into the oil rings on the pistons to help free them up if sticking.
Once done all this, reinsert spark plugs/coils. Reinstall EFI fuse. Crank her over. It will or may struggle to start and seem lumpy but eventually the engine settles. Lots of white smoke out the exhaust! So beware of upsetting neighbours. Let it tick over a few minutes then take it on the highway for a 20 minute run. It does help to have a boroscope for before and after inspections You can get one off eBay cheap for 20 pounds/bucks which is good enough to check the piston tops. Years ago it was like you had a new bottom half of the engine. Some people use an engine flush shortly after and change their oil. BG109, Liquid Moly or Forte seems to be decent stuff.
Never heard of added but I’ll check it out. Also BG seems to have some products that supposedly clean carbon build up on piston rings which cause oil burning on high mileage cars and I’ll be trying that on my car in the near future.
Combination of GDI engine and 10K or higher miles oil change have really contributed to rising carbon build up. So I’m doing 5K mile oil changes now.
Also the carbon build on the intake valves were so hard baked on there that even overnight soaking didn’t seem to soften it. So I had to literally open the top side of engine and scrub the carbon off chunk by chunk. So it would be great if BG or Redex products can dissolve the hardened carbon which will make this job much easier.
I have several friends that drive Toyota and they are very reliable car overall, but 10K mile oil changes are causing all the cars over 120k miles to burn oil. And once they reach 180k miles, it’s burning literally 1 quart every 300-500 miles so they are carrying oil in their trunk.
Thanks for the video on this! Valves look improved a lot imo!
he did not show the valves. He showed the pistons. These cars have issues with carbon buildup on valves (above the pistons) because the gas is not getting on the valves, but goes straight into the pistons.
Thank you for making this video, very helpful.
Excellent video, now I want to do this on my ES330 lol!
What year and how many miles do you have?
If you are going to tackle this, make sure you have a borescope camera and a shopvac, because you MUST verify that nearly all cleaning liquid have been vacuumed out. I used Depstech brand borescope, which happens to be on sale for $43 on Amazon today. No I'm not a sponsor, but I am in the middle of making a product review video on Depstech because it exceeded my expectation.
Lastly, after I completed this work, I found some info in Berryman's web site, where there were some mentions of not soaking the aluminum block for more than 1 hour on one page, and 4 hours on another page. As documented in the video, I soaked my pistons overnight, so it was between 8 to 10 hours I believe. The car is running better than before, but after seeing Berryman's warning, I suggest you experiment one cylinder with just one hour of soaking, then vacuum out the solution, then drive it on the highway. Do borescope before and after to see if that did the cleaning before soaking for longer time. They also sell this in a smaller container so you don't have to get a gallon size like I did.
Once you are done with all pistons...meaning including driving on the highway for 30 minutes to burn off remaining carbon, I suggest you minimally changes the oil, because if Chem-Dip contaminates the oil, the oil is going to lose some of its lubricant capability. Also, if it's old spark plugs, you might want to replace it. If it's relatively new, you might want to examine them, and possibly clean off any carbon that came off from the piston head and coated the spark plug tips. In my case, I timed this work so that I was due for an oil and spark plug changes.
Good luck, and let me know if you have any questions along the way.
Great video, i love the modified shop vac!!! Definitly the best way I have seen yet to clean up the solvant without creating a big mess. Also very thorough way to get most of the loosened carbon out before startup!!!
Now that you got most of the carbon off of the pistons, you could try the Berryman combustion chamber cleaner to see if that can help clean up the remaining carbon.
I forgot to mention in the video that don’t use the vacuum with anything flammable like seafoam. Berryman is not flammable so it’s safe.
Didn’t know Berryman had combustion cleaner. I’ll look into it. Thanks
@@DIYLifeSkills excellent point. yes Berryman has the B12 injector cleaner that can be added to fuel... some UA-camrs do use the B12 as a piston soak.
@@Verison12345678 Thanks for that info. I’ll be checking it out soon
@@DIYLifeSkills if you happen to use the Berryman combusion chamber cleaner, do another video on it with before and after pictures of the piston heads. I'd love to see how well it works. There are a couple other reviews of the product, but none with pictures yet, as far as i know.
What a great video man very Organized and straight to the point , I just bought the same yellow borescope from DEPSTECH and I was very surprised on how great the picture quality, but the sad part is the piston rings on my 08 gs350 was very bad , im looking to do the same you did 👍🏼
Hi Costantine, the Depstech camera I bought was this single lens, which worked great.
www.amazon.com/Endoscope-DEPSTECH-Semi-Rigid-Inspection-Tablets-16-5Ft/dp/B07MV6X4M4/ref=sr_1_7_sspa?keywords=depstech+endoscope&qid=1656671802&sprefix=deps%2Caps%2C118&sr=8-7-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFTNjcwRktWUks5RDgmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA0MDQxNDBHM09CVlBTUFdFRkQmZW5jcnlwdGVkQWRJZD1BMDAyMDkzNTNSVkNIVlM0UlVYWEUmd2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9tdGYmYWN0aW9uPWNsaWNrUmVkaXJlY3QmZG9Ob3RMb2dDbGljaz10cnVl
But now, they have a dual lens that can look straight or switch to 2nd lens that look side ways.
www.amazon.com/DEPSTECH-Inspection-Waterproof-Semi-Rigid-Tablet-16-4FT/dp/B08NJ8627V/ref=sxin_16_pa_sp_search_thematic_sspa?content-id=amzn1.sym.b245e49f-68a4-4489-b1f9-81f4034255f5%3Aamzn1.sym.b245e49f-68a4-4489-b1f9-81f4034255f5&cv_ct_cx=depstech+endoscope&keywords=depstech+endoscope&pd_rd_i=B08NJ8627V&pd_rd_r=ad86df15-72f9-46eb-b2f1-f78c46bb5e5d&pd_rd_w=Ntbbg&pd_rd_wg=Ey1mC&pf_rd_p=b245e49f-68a4-4489-b1f9-81f4034255f5&pf_rd_r=DTHMY8S225ZN158K1MKG&qid=1656671802&sprefix=deps%2Caps%2C118&sr=1-4-a73d1c8c-2fd2-4f19-aa41-2df022bcb241-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUFTNjcwRktWUks5RDgmZW5jcnlwdGVkSWQ9QTA5MjI5MzAyTkpZUkVPVU1WUFdHJmVuY3J5cHRlZEFkSWQ9QTAyNzMzMTgxR0w2TVc5RlZJT0g4JndpZGdldE5hbWU9c3Bfc2VhcmNoX3RoZW1hdGljJmFjdGlvbj1jbGlja1JlZGlyZWN0JmRvTm90TG9nQ2xpY2s9dHJ1ZQ==
Had the dual lens been available, I would bought that for just another $20 which I can use for many uses such plumbing and other car repairs.
These two requires a smartphone to watch & record.
If you just bought the Depstech, you might be able to return it and swap it to the dual lens...if you like. Right now it's -20% off ($69.99) and they are allowing additional 10% off today.
Looking back, I think soaking the pistons with Chem Dip for just few hours is enough. Avoid soaking more than 12 hours.
And be sure to thoroughly vacuum out the remaining solution with shopvac connected to a small hose.
This is super important to not hydro-lock.
Good luck and let me know how it goes.
For me the single camera is good. The only part I’m missing here is the vacuum attachment which I’m not sure how you can attached that 3/8 inch hose to it and still sucking all the seafoam ?? Also should I use the both cleaners or just seafoam and how much ? Should I expect the solution to go and sit on top of the piston or the soultion will find it’s way and seep from the piston wall down to the crankcase ?
I bought 3/8 inch or ~9.5mm clear hose from hardware store. I used duct tape to connect to the end of the shopvac.
I used chemdip, which is not flammable that’s why I was able to used the vacuum. If you use seafoam, that’s highly flammable, so you can’t vacuum it out as the spark in vacuum motor could ignite fire!!!
If you use seafoam, you’ll have to use non motor way to extract the liquid such as liquid hand pump which you can buy for about $10 but this may not get as much liquid out as the vacuum.
So the best option is to use non-flammable chem dip.
BTW thank you for being so thorough!
Good luck and let me know how it goes.
Good job
Good stuff!
Man, i just thought about using a vacuum to do the clean up, because I have not see anyone doing this way, then a few minutes your video came up... AI can read Mind now . 👍
Just be sure to use non-flammable cleaner like the one I used. You don’t want to use vacuum with flammable cleaner which can set off fire.
Thank you 👍
Hi did you feel your car get more power/torque after doing this piston soak cleaning?
So can I put the car top dead center pour the chem on each piston and leave it let it sit for 2 days then vaccum it out ?
Sorry, I missed your comment before. 2 days soaking is too long. I think just few hours of soaking would be enough.
And yes, all you have to do is soak and then vacuum it out thoroughly to avoid hydrolocking.
And then drive it on a highway to burn off remaining solution.
I would time this just before oil change is needed because, you should change oil after cleaning and driving it for about 30 minutes on the highway.
Have a pisten ring issue will pour b12 in all the cylinders and let soak for a few days. Then remove and inspect with boriscope
Don’t soak too long for aluminum engine block. I think 4 hours is enough.
some people doing this method rotate the engine by hand.......several times........... in an attempt to free up sticking rings. You might also consider. Cheers!
I think that’s an excellent idea to get some of the cleaning solution to reach piston rings. I’m definitely doing that next time. Thanks.
Nice video, can I just use regular Carb and choke cleaner? And change oil afterwards?
Sure. But be sure to vacuum out the liquid before starting the car to avoid hydrolocking
@@DIYLifeSkillsThank you for the response 🙂
You might also consider BG product which has become really popular after I made this video. They claim to remove carbon on piston rings which is the ultimate goal of cleaning pistons. Search for BG piston ring cleaner and you’ll find different products and UA-cam videos. Next time, I’m also going to try the BG product.
i heard how chemdip is bad for alunimum blocks and it eats away the metal since its so harsh. Do you think its safe for the engine?
Chem Dip instruction says to soak under 4 hours for certain aluminum. Well, I didn't know that instruction at the time of the soaking and ended up soaking for about 10 hours overnight. Not necessarily because I wanted to soak that long, but the day ended and I resumed the work the next day, so that was about 10 hour gap.
I've not had issues, in fact, after heavy carbon build up cleaning on intake valves and piston tops, the car seems to idle more smoother and accelerate bit more sharp.
There are many UA-cam videos on people soaking engine and engine parts for 1 to 2 hours and they rave about how carbon literally melted, which was also my experience. So in conclusion, based on other videos, I think 1 to 2 hour soaking is sufficient and that's well below the 4 hour limit mentioned on chem dip instruction.
I'm not afraid at all to soak engine with chem dip, in fact, I plan to chem dip soak my 2 other cars, 2013 Camry and 2016 Corolla sometime this summer.
This guy soaked for 2 hours, and mentions that chemdip instruction says to limit to max 4 hours for aluminum soaking.
ua-cam.com/video/voe-ZcKjg4Y/v-deo.html
Here is a guy who soaked the pistons for about 1.5 hours.
ua-cam.com/video/q98BSSuicJo/v-deo.html
Here is another one, soaking for 1 to 1.5 hour.
ua-cam.com/video/7ei5gXcbl-k/v-deo.html
This guy soaked the engine for more than 1 hour.
ua-cam.com/video/j34KTk8ZODg/v-deo.html
@@DIYLifeSkills This video was so useful. Thank you for making it.
Great video, I'm doing this to my car this week but I'm using seafoam .
Great. Just one caution. Seafoam is highly flammable unlike chem-dip, so if you use chem-dip, using a shop-vac could spark flame and start fire in shop vac, so use hand/syphon vacuum hose method instead. Or use chem-dip, since it worked well. You do have to get nearly all liquid removed to avoid hydro-lock failure. Looking back, I think you only need to soak 1 to 2 hours to loosen the carbon, and then once you remove the cleaning solution, you can then take it out on a high speed driving and it'll burn off all loosened carbon. Good luck and let me know how it goes. Thanks.
@@DIYLifeSkills thanks but I'm gonna spray the seafoam through the throttle body and keep my rpms at about 2,500 to 3,000 and put the fuel cleaner in the gas tank and see how that works.
@@dannysautorepair Seafoam is ok, but a product that has PEA in it is superior. Red Line SI-1 Complete Fuel System Cleaner is EXCELLENT. Check the reviews. There are many other products out there with PEA as well. STP makes one. Cheers.
I’ll check it. Thanks
Seafoam is useless for cleaning carbon in my experience. It's just not a strong enough solvent.
can you give me some advices? I did the same piston soaking as you did. I vacuumed all of the chemical out and rechecked with my borescope. reinstalled the spark plugs and started up the car. I was able to drive for about 10 minutes perfectly fine. then when i am at the red light, my car started shaking really bad, check engine lights flashing. i managed to limp back home. scanned the car and it has random misfires detected P0300. I changed to new spark plugs and ignition coils, but engine still has misfire in cylinder #4 (P0304). I rechecked all of my cylinders with the borescope and they are pretty dry. please help out. thank you.
I need more info. Can you answer following question:
What make and model and miles on the car?
How many miles on the previous plugs? Small bump on plug tips changes the plug gap. We’re you careful in handling and installing?
Did any of the coil connectors break? These break easily on Toyota/Lexus. Broken ones need connector housing replaced or secure it with a plastic zip tie.
Did you buy exact matching plugs from Toyota/Lexus dealer or from reputable auto parts store? Online has too many fake plugs. Any non exact matching will cause misfire on this car. Initially I bought a slightly cheaper plugs and had to return and buy the exact OEM matching ones.
Did you carefully check the plug gaps on new ones? They say you don’t have to since it’s factory set. But my new set was slightly off on some and gave misfire and had to reset it. Also be careful now to drop the plug into the plug hole as it’ll change the gap. Use magnets or rubber inside plug socket that can hold the plug without dropping it.
Try swapping both coil and plug on #4 with another cylinder and see if misfire moves.
Make sure non of the vacuum hoses came out while juggling wires around to replace the plugs.
@@DIYLifeSkills thank you so so much for your quick reply and your help. I did what you said and I rechecked my ignition coils. one of the four got damaged after took it out to do the piston soak. I got another one and everything is fine now. Thanks again!!!!
@@adamnugent2137 Perfect. Great to hear all is good now. Thanks
One of my spark plugs got damaged somehow (hairline cracked porcelain) even though I was being careful. That in turn was causing misfires, even thought it didn't throw a code.
About the remaining fluid on top of the pistons, I think that if you take all spark plugs out and leave spark holes open and start the engine every fluid will shoot off of the spark holes.
Is that safe for the engine or not?
Don’t let this chemical spew all over the engine or to yourself. It’s a harsh chemical, so vacuum it out using a thin hose like I did.
Watch the video closely, I explain this in detail. Definitely do not start the engine with plugs in…it can hydro-lock and kill the engine. This is very effective cleaning method, but follow the instructions carefully. What car year and model do you have?
@@DIYLifeSkills
Indeed it is a harsh chemical but what i meant is soaking it over night then start the engine with *no plugs on* to let it escape
Of course I'll catch it with a towel over the plug holes, so it doesn't harm me or anyone
I own a 2009 Ford Mustang with v8 engine
@@Arab_Guy_GT500 It all depends on how much you pour in. I probably poured enough to cover about 1/4 - 1/2” over the piston top to make sure I get a good soaking coverage. If you pour just a little amount perhaps you could just crank it without the plugs but I’m not sure you’ll achieve the carbon cleaning.
I would still recommend shop-vac to remove nearly all liquid because I don’t trust cranking will push out all the liquid. It’s very helpful ti have borescope to confirm that liquid is removed. Borescope can also let you see before and after results. Cheap ones are under $20.
@Anything Goes because you are dealing with longevity of the engine, I just don’t want you to cut corners and risk not really cleaning the carbon, and worst yet, hydro-lock one of the cylinders because enough liquid was left on top of the piston.
@@DIYLifeSkills
Thank you so much sir 🙏🏼
You helped me indeed
I'll buy a Borescope first and to be safe I'll vacuum up all the liquid just like how you did and I'll double check.
Of course no one wants the hydro-lock it is what I'm afraid of and that's why I wanna take your advice.
Again thank you 🙏🏼
Does this clear out the piston rings as well, and will it help reduce or eliminate oil burning?
Got to do a compression test to see if there is a change before / after soaking.
If you do that let me know how it goes. I know this removes carbon from top of the pistons but not sure how much it can soak down and free up piston ring carbons.
This was specifically for piston top but since then, I’ve found BG product that supposedly remove carbon on piston rings. Next time I’m gonna give it a shot.
@@DIYLifeSkillswhat product?
@@bushmenaa this one amzn.to/3G5n5fg
Question when you drive on freeway did you just drive on sports mode or auto mode ? Because I do see your rpm reaches 5000 and 6000 which is great for cleaning carbon buildup ,,, mine never reach it unless I drive on sports mode ? Thanks
I normally don’t drive in sports mode as I don’t drive aggressively as I know how harsh that is on the engine and transmission. But once in a while, like in this case, I intentionally wanted to drive hard to force the carbon residue to burn off since they were softened from soaking.
I got the full car fax report when I bought the car, and they did pretty good maintenance but I don’t see transmission and rear axle fluid getting changed so that’s something I’m planning probably in the fall. It’s nearly 100 degrees here everyday and it’s hard to work in that temp. :-)
@@DIYLifeSkills make sense , I’ll be doing this method next week, can’t wait to see the top piston rings like brand new again 👍🏼
@@costantineyoussif6679 Not sure about piston rings but piston top for sure will be clean.
Which solution (chemdip or seafoam) did you decide to use?
@@costantineyoussif6679 if you use chemdip you can use shopvac for quicker retrieve of cleaning solution. If you use seafoam, you can use hand fluid pump, to remove as much remaining cleaning solution as possible. For hand pump it’ll help to have one person pump and one person move the hose around to soak up the solutions.
i think i should do this as well :) !!!
Yeah it goes well together with intake carbon cleaning. Make sure to get borescope so you can see before and after results and also to make sure you remove all liquid out of piston chamber after soaking.
How did the valves look?
It’s all captures in the video. ua-cam.com/video/m0fGP3MrqFQ/v-deo.html
Basically, intake valves had very heavy carbon deposits and got them all cleaned and car seems to be more responsive.
Do you prefers chem dip cleaner or seafoam ? Which gives you best results ?
Both have many positive reviews. I chose chem dip because it was not flammable and I could vacuum it out without. Seafoam is highly flammable so much caution is needed and should not use vacuum because the motor will generate some spark. One advantage for seafoam is you can buy in small can but chem dip comes in big can so you’ll have to pay more initially.
@@DIYLifeSkills do you recommend me using Redline SI-1 fuel system cleaner inside the piston rings since this is the only cleaner have the highest PEA which knows to dissolve carbon buildup ?
There are many carbon dissolving solutions, but The big challenge is just soaking ain’t going to get any meaningful amount of carbon dissolving solutions to come in contact with piston rings because piston rings are designed to act like springs and they expand outward to make reasonably tight seal in cylinder chamber.
@@costantineyoussif6679 I guessing you are trying to reduce oil burning issue? How much oil are you burning? The owner's manual states, it's normal to burn 1L per 1000KM or 1.1 Quart for every 600 miles. This is really disappointing since at that burn rate, just in 3600-4000 miles, all 6.7 quarts of oil would be burned. So it won't even make it to 5K mile oil change let alone 10K mile change.
Also, owner's manual states "When judging the amount of oil consumption, keep in mind that the oil may have become diluted, making it difficult to judge the true level accurately.
For example, if a vehicle is used for repeated short trips and consumes a normal amount of oil, the dipstick may not show any drop in the oil level at all, even after 1000 km (600 miles)
or more. This is because the oil is gradually becoming diluted with fuel or moisture, making it appear that the oil level has not changed. The diluting ingredients evaporate out when the vehicle is then driven at high speeds, as on an expressway, making it appear that oil is excessively consumed after driving at high speeds."
That means, if you only drive in short trips and do not get on long highway driving, the moisture and fuel dilution would give fake higher reading...
You should change your oil after as the cleaner will leak down into the sump
Not sure you watched the full video. I intentionally changed the oil after driving about a bit to get loosened carbon to be collected into oil so that new oil starts clean without carbon residue and any cleaning solution. Also piston rings are like spring that expands out and seals the piston chamber pretty good to create proper compression unless it became defective or fouled with heavy carbon in which case the car will be burning a lot of oil, which is not happening in this car.
How much chem dip do you think you added in each cylender
Sorry I saw the message just now. I added just enough to coat about 1/4” of depth on pistons. Cylinder wall is relatively clean since piston is constantly going up and down. The main carbon build up is on piston top and some around the piston rings.
I think soaking for 2-3 hours is actually enough, but after vacuuming out the chem dip thoroughly, do drive it in the highway speed to burn off the loosened carbon and then do the oil change. So ideally, you do this just before oil change is due.
@@DIYLifeSkills think it could be dangerous driving around with the chem tool in the crankcase? Some has to slip by the rings and into the oil
@@JonnyAbs-0 That’s why you have to vacuum out the chemdip first. I covered this in the video. Otherwise you risk hydrolocking the pistons and kill the engine. BTW, chemdip is not flammable so you can use shopvac to suck it out. :-)
@@DIYLifeSkills thanks but I was talking about in the crankcase by slipping past the rings, not in the cylinders. I get having to clear the cylinders to prevent hydrolock
I am currently doing this right now it and it seemed that the chem dip soaked passed the pistons rings
My question is "how do you know?" :-)
Are you watching the solution level using a borescope closely?
That said, it's a liquid so I'm sure some small amount could leak past the piston rings,
but good piston rings should act like spring that expand outward and make tight seal against the combustion chamber wall
so at best only minimal solutions should get past the rings.
In any case it's actually good if some chem-dip can soak the piston rings to clean carbon build up there,
but this could also indicate worn springs.
This is why I recommend doing the oil change soon after this cleaning.
It's probably better to drive a bit on the highway to burn off the carbon, which will contaminate the oil,
and then do the oil change.
@@DIYLifeSkills sadly I’m burning a quart every 100 miles (pretty sure rings are shot). I’m going to do this piston soak as a shot in the dark before I rebuild the the bottom end. At least I won’t be wasting money doing this since if I need to rebuild the engine, I can soak the pistons itself in the chem dip :) I know I should’ve done a wet/ dry compression test and even a leak down test beforehand but time isn’t on my side right now. How many hours should I soak the cylinders?
@@pongstatus7268 Wow, that's a lot. So apparently, one of the piston ring (called oil ring) is supposed to scrape the oil off the cylinder wall, and that oil is supposed to sip through tiny holes around the cylinder head and drop into the oil pan, but if the oil change is not done regularly or low quality oil is used, these tiny holes get clogged and all the oil on the cylinder wall just gets combusted (hence burning oil). Do you see some smoke coming out of the exhaust, and is your exhaust pipe all gunk up with black carbon? Also burning oil for a long time will eventually clog the catalytic converter, which is also very expensive to replace. If you are going to rebuild the engine, sooner the better to save the cat.
How long did you have the car and how many miles does it have? And how long has it burning this much oil?
@@DIYLifeSkills had the car for about less than an a year. 99 Corolla has 200k. Toyota had an issue where the oil holes in the pistons would clog of carbon so they added more holes in about 2003 to fix the issue. I don’t mind rebuilding the motor since it’s my project car but I just wanted to try this solution to at least aid the consumption. I’m dropping aftermarket cams and other performance parts soon which is also why I’m trying to free up the rings right now.
Using vinegar works great . 👍
Never thought about vinegar but I see some folks using it to clean carbon but mostly after engine is taken apart. I’m finding conflicting info on whether vinegar is safe for aluminum engine block but looks like as long as you don’t soak for days but rather just few hours, it might be ok.
UGH... what if is leaks past your pistons into the crankcase 😯No water based cleaners
Ive seen that carbon build up can lead to engine knocking..as well.
Yup all sorts of bad things with carbon build up like poor gas mileage, losing power, but most of piston rings getting clogged and leading to oil burning.
thanks. Is this currently your best method, product? @@DIYLifeSkills
@@atomicdmt8763 At the time it was but now they have a “BG EPR engine restoration” product that’s supposed to remove engine internal build up including piston rings which I would like to try next. But of course it’s hard to do video on piston rings without taking engine apart.
Don't need to vacuum the cylinders. Just start the engine without spark plugs. It will all spray out.
Thanks for the commen. That is possible way, but Remember that these carbon cleaning chemicals are harsh to paint and rubber. If you keep it in long enough, they even damage aluminum. So if you are going to crank to spray it out be sure to cover it with towel. And once towel gets wet, you’ll have to shift it to dry side. And hopefully, battery doesn’t drain out with extending dry cranking.
In the end, I suggest to use borescope to ensure that there is no puddle of liquid still remaining. Note that on V6, cylinder do not point straight up. Rather piston are tilted in angle and there is potential of puddle of liquid lingering in the lower corner.
Just don’t want anyone to experience hydrolock.
A towel is a good choice if you are maticulous about engine bay. Also I forgot to say to turn off injection system so no petrol sprays while you crank. Maybe your way is better but this is faster. There are more ways to clean the valves like walnut blasting or dry ice cleaning
I did that and it shot black goop from the melted carbon everywhere. It took far longer to clean than it did to get a #10 pump from the parts store which is what I did and have used since. Besides, you don't want chem dip touching anything except your combustion chamber.
@@tommywilliamsjr.697 Yup that’s exactly why vacuuming/pumping is more cleaner and effective method.
@@tommywilliamsjr.697Did you cover the ports so that it didn’t go every where?
Just 10ml of fluid to soak the carbon. No needs to vac just drive. Heat the engine as PES works best when hot
Piston head is sitting on angle and not upright. 10ml is just 2 teaspoon amount and that will just cover just the small portion of the lower side of the piston only.
Sooooooo… I don’t need to scrub at all really.
Yup, there is no way to scrub piston top anyway. Just soak for couple of hours and then drive it on highway. That's it.
2002 Honda accord se heavy oil consumption
I’ve been hearing that BG piston cabin removal solution works pretty good. I’ll find the link for you after I finish work.
Muchas gracias,
If you allow the engine to suck in water through the intake then you will get really clean piston tops and combustion chamber. Might not be good for the A/F ratio and O2 sensors though.
Only if spray light mist is sprayed slowly, otherwise pouring in water will cause hydrolock and kill the engine.
@@DIYLifeSkills Oh yes of course. I would use a small vacuum hose connected to the intake and let is suck in water a little at a time.
Yeah something about high temperature and water vapor combination have proven to remove carbons. I’ve seen videos where they use a spray bottle to spray misty water through throttle body slowly. Other being super careful to not add too much water at once, I think it’s one of the effective cleaning method. In fact few years back, there was a big battle by a UK mechanic and other UA-cam creators on whether water is more or just as effective as SeaFoam in cleaning carbon. :-)
@@seatee4770 I just like soaking method since it’s doing most of the carbon cleaning while the engine is not running and afterwards I get to vacuum out the most of the loosened carbon and remaining solution. And then I drive it on a highway to burn off any residual loosened carbon and cleaning solution and then immediately do the oil change. This way I’m minimizing loosened carbon circulating around PCV, exhaust valves, oxygen sensors, and catalytic converter.
I just started the piston soak on my '07 IS350, with the 2GR-FSE. I checked back about an hour later and noticed that most of the chemdip drained out. Do you think this is because of bad rings?
Really? How much chemdip did you put? You know cylinder head is slightly in tilted angle so liquid would settle on the lower side if you didn’t put enough. Did you use borescope camera and spin it around to check all sides? Also did you do this on one cylinder or all?
If liquid is all draining to the oil pan, then the piston ring springs are somewhat seized with carbon deposits and and not expanding outward to seal the air pressure inside of piston chamber.
If that is the case, you are definitely burning oil, meaning losing oil without leaking outside.
The piston ring carbon build up is very difficult to clean though there are solutions that claim to clean it, it’s a hit or miss depending on how bad the condition is.
Here is what I would consider doing, first double check all cylinders heads in all angles to confirm how much liquid is left inside. If there are any puddle left, then you need to vacuum it out as much as you using a shopvac with a 3/8 inch hose.
This is important to not leave a chunk of liquid puddle before you start the engine to avoid hydro locking the engine that can literally bend piston rods and kill the engine.
After that, check the oil level, since according your claim all the solution dropped to the oil pan. Safe thing to do is to do oil change at this point.
In my car, I actually drove for about 100 miles on highway to get the loosened carbon removed to the oil before doing oil change. I did this because I was confident most of the chemdip stayed inside piston chamber and that I was able to vacuum it out.
In your case you have chemdip mixed with oil. Some engine carbon cleaners let you mix with oil and let engine idle for about 5 minutes to clean the engine.
Now this part is something you’ll have to decide whether you want to start the car and let it idle for 5-10 minutes with some Chemdip to clean some carbon off of areas where oil will travel. But this method has much debate by mechanics as it’ll clean carbon but if the internal engine has heavy carbon deposits, sometime a loosened carbon particle can clogged a small oil passage hole which can prevent proper oil flow and make things worse.
Safest method would be so the oil change before starting and driving the car.
Give me some updates on what’s happening now?
@@DIYLifeSkills thanks for the thorough response.
I let it soak overnight and checked up on it in the morning, four of the pistons seem to be bone dry .
So I decided to start a soak again and I'm going to check up on it in about an hour.
I just don't want very dry hard pieces of carbon flying around inside my cylinder walls so I'm soaking again to hope it softens it up.
I'll follow up when I check again in about an hour 👍
@@DIYLifeSkills I just checked up on it and bank 1 piston 1 drained completely and seemed to not get a chance to soak much since it drained so quick.
I'm thinking next time maybe using BG 109 before doing a piston soak, so the rings don't allow it to drain so fast
@@ballzzinyourmouth8 How many miles and what year is the car?
how do you find personally tdc on the 2gr?
Same method that I used should work. Remove the spark plug, and use a long wood dowel/stick and you rotate the crankcase until the stick doesn’t come up anymore, and that’ll be TDC. Mark the TDC point on the wood and repeat it one more time to double confirm that’s the absolute maximum TDC. After that all cylinder should be same in terms of stick depth to determine the TDC.
In my case, leaking some cleaning solution into the piston actually worked out for me as it cleaned the carbon off the piston heads. I have a separate video on this.
@@DIYLifeSkills wow fast and thorough reply thanks. Do you have a method for finding the compression stroke for say a leak down test?
@@ballzzinyourmouth8 The best is use the compression test tool that can be rented free from auto-part store. You just remove fuse to the fuel pump first to stop feeding the fuel, and then remove the spark plug and insert the compression test adapter in place of spark plug to get the reading. And do this for all cylinders. Just note that these compression testers can vary quite a bit in reading. So one thought is to rent different brand from different auto part stores to get two different numbers to draw better conclusion.
If you see a low compression on some cylinder in comparison to other cylinders, then you can pour very small amount of oil through the spark plug hole and directly onto the cylinder head, and then repeat the compression test. If the compression number comes up to near same level as other cylinders, then you know, likely you have bad piston ring or worn piston chamber.
Are you having some misfiring or oil burning issue?