7.3idi decarbonizing water steam

sieg01

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Hi @ all.

Is there a HowTo decarbonize this motor by spraying water into the intake manifold?

How much water? Ml would be fine ;)
Over what time period?
At what RPMs?
How warm/hot should the motor be?

Is there anything else to be answered what I didn't ask?
 

rvitko

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I have very cautiously tried this and I used this sprayer with a very fine mist sprayed into the air intake with the filter removed. I was just running at idle and I was running the engine on straight Lubromoly Diesel Purge at the same time. I was very nervous and I would stop spraying at the first change in engine sound. This sprayer can put out a very fine mist compared to most. You have to keep in mind the 21.5 to 1 compression, the clearance is literally the head gasket, the crown of the piston is past the deck of the block at TDC, it would not take much to hydrolock the cylinders. I have wondered about using PEA on a diesel, it is what is used to decarbonize gasoline motors, especially injectors and turbos, I have especially wondered if it would be feasible to remove the glow plugs and spray a lot of PEA intake cleaner into the cylinder, wait a day or so for it to work and any liquid to drain/evaporate and then reinstall the glow plugs and give it a run. Having seen a modern VW TDI with a blown head gasket, it is pretty amazing how well water can decarbonize a diesel, the two cylinders that coolant was entering were like brand new, but a TDI is more like 17 to 1 compression and has more safety margin and the head gasket leak on this car was minor, the exhaust had a white fog at higher speed and the coolant loss was manageable.

 

Booyah45828

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For water to work at cleaning chambers, you also have to have heat. Gas engines don't have an issue with heat at idle, but diesels do. So I'd say any cleaning you want to do should be done while the engine is under load/making heat.

Like rvitko said, it real easy to find a bad head gasket because the cylinder that's leaking is usually spotless. The leaking coolant steam cleans everything on that cylinder.

Some guys have noted very clean engines that had water/methanol kits installed fwiw. If you want to try it, install a cheap one using windshield washer fluid, drive the pants off it while spraying, and then see what you get.

I've used gm's top engine cleaner to de-carbon some engines, but be warned, most of those cleaners attack aluminum, so it's not recommended to leave in place for more then an hour or so. They say the gallon paint cans of carb cleaner are the same/similar stuff.
 
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Clb

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An anecdotal mention from WAY back....
One old air cooled wrench used to use diesel and h2o @50\50 run engine up in rpm pour in from a qt container as fast as possible and open throttle up at the same time, and regulate rpm with flow of snake oil mixture.

The idea is to give it plenty to drink without drowning\flooding it (look up hydro locked eng.)
NOTE DO NOT STAY ON THE GOVERNOR ONCE DONE.
Keep it running fast for a minute, go drive the snot outta it for a half hr to burn off what is literally "wet stacking" during this process. Some alternatives are atf, kerosene, most petroleum based solvents.

Disclaimer
Ymmv
Enter at your own risk
Caution contents may be hot (mcDonnalds)
 

sieg01

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Thanks for joining this thread.
I bought a sprayer (economic, houshold with brass jet and no pressure pump) - until I read the first reply on this thread.

Since I never did this before I was "nervous and insecure". So I was not too brave. :)
After driving some time, I sprayed about 50ml into the intake manifold at high idle.
Except that it was noisy I could not see any change.
Then I went for another ride and that's it.

It I want to use ATF. How much ATF should be added to how many litres of Diesel? Percentage.

Thanks.
 

hacked89

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You're asking about this motor, and I dont think this motor needs to get decarbonized. It's not direct injection, it uses precups so you dont get carbon caked on the valves. Overall they usually look pretty clean inside.
 

CDX825

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Diesels dont get carboned up like gas engines do. If you want to clean it out the best thing you can do is run it hard with a load. Like a long highway run for example. Other than that I wouldn't recommend pouring anything down the intake on these engines. Way to easy to hydro lock one of these engines.
 

rvitko

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Just to add to what these guys are saying, this is the internals of the factory turbo I am stripping to rebuild, there is carbon, but the valves are pretty clean and seeing as the turbo pistons have a black ceramic coating out to about 4mm from the edge, it is not like it has big chunks of flaky carbon. My daily driver is a 2011 Subaru Outback with a 3.6 and 180K miles, it has way more carbon than this old junkyard diesel motor, but in that case, the PEA additives and direct spray in cleaners make pretty short work of it. I just decarbonized the Subaru motor and pulled the intake to check as I was getting some rough idle issues.
 

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rvitko

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I just realized the original poster is from Finland and probably used to more modern diesels with an EGR valve, without an EGR, very little carbon accumulates in a diesel, if you delete the EGR on more modern diesels, you get the same. Even from this time most diesel cars had EGR but trucks were exempt a lot longer, I have an 85 diesel Mercedes and when I rebuilt the engine, it had a lot of carbon, but it no longer has an EGR. The carbon comes from reburning exhaust. On the engine I am working on now, the only flaky carbon was on rocker arms and the top end of pushrods, and that was likely from leaky exhaust valve seals. In my pic above, I didn't even wipe it down, so considering how black the oil gets, that valley shows how little builds up.
 

sieg01

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Hi @ all.

Thanks for sharing!
Idea was to clean the "inside" because now - since I use non blended WVO - my glow plugs start dying, because they overheat as they are covered with the black stuff.

Now I added 350ml ATF on ca. 80L in the middle tank. The Diesel is bit darker than pink now. :)
Every time before switching off the engine I switch to this tank, so I drive some Km with the diesel.
I am expecting, that
- the WVO is pushed back in its tank
- the chamber gets "cleaned"
- I make it easier for the motor to fire up when starting again.
 

franklin2

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Does anyone know if the red dye in ATF triggers the indicator strips the off-road diesel police use to dip the tanks?
 

nelstomlinson

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I once watched an old boy with a steady hand rev up a gas engine and trickle water from a coke bottle into the carb. He poured just fast enough that the rpms started to drop. He got away with it. I'd expect that to hydrolock our engines.
 

IDIBRONCO

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Does anyone know if the red dye in ATF triggers the indicator strips the off-road diesel police use to dip the tanks?
I don't know, but I wouldn't take the chance.
I once watched an old boy with a steady hand rev up a gas engine and trickle water from a coke bottle into the carb. He poured just fast enough that the rpms started to drop. He got away with it. I'd expect that to hydrolock our engines.
It works with lower compression engines.
 

03wr250f

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After having torn down a motor I used water **** on, and one that didn't use water m3th.
There is less oily residue in the intake manifold, valves, ports in the heads and cylinders are cleaner.
It definetly does clean some. Our idis don't get dirty enough imo to worry about cleaning them. I do recommend water m3th for power increases and egts but not worth it to clean already a decently clean motor internally
 

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