Zmax oil additive

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

I would not recommend Sea Foam in the oil. There are several others here that have had first hand experience and will agree.

In the fuel system though its fine.

As for the Lucas oil additive check out the following link.
http://www.bobistheoilguy.com/images/lucas/lucas.htm

I am not saying yay or nay about the LUCAS debate; but, I will say that the "bobistheoilguy" people have their own axe to grind as they do market a brand of synthetic oils and additives of their own manufacture that have a following of their own, so any information from that angle should be taken with a grain of salt.

I will add that, snake oil or no, LUCAS has many an old-time independent trucker convinced.

 

[RLDSL]

I am not saying yay or nay about the LUCAS debate; but, I will say that the "bobistheoilguy" people have their own axe to grind as they do market a brand of synthetic oils and additives of their own manufacture that have a following of their own, so any information from that angle should be taken with a grain of salt.

I will add that, snake oil or no, LUCAS has many an old-time independent trucker convinced.

What.. you mean all that "independent" stuff could possibly be influenced by a penchant for a certain unnamed *coughShaefferscough* oil that they might be trying to pimp and their list mom limits their membership to people who possibly won't know enough to argue with them

I wouldn't put Lucas in anything mechanically sound, but if you've got something that is worn out, that stuff is a real life saver. It's kept a LOT of equipment on the road way past when it should have died. Heck, I have a rear axle seal that was leaking, ordered the parts, just haven't had the time to tear into it, so I grabbed what I know would take care of it fast, I sucked obout a cup or so of oil out of the rear and topped it off with Lucas and it's held the leak back for over a month. Hopefully I'll have time to mess with it here soon.

 

[RLDSL]

I just read the FTC v. Zmax case stipulated final result and it reads to me like the FTC said it was snake-oil, and Zmax lost - to the tune of 1 million dollars! http://www.ftc.gov/os/caselist/0023256/0023256.shtm is the link from the FTC web site, so it's not bogus. Where did you read that the FTC lost?

And if you look at the Zmax website they have a link that says FTC and if you read it carefully, they are basically skirting the judgment of the original FTC ruling, they have not changed the formula nor have they come up with evidence showing that the stuff actually works. THey basically just stuck up their middle finger at the FTC and consumers and kept on selling the stuff.

 

[Agnem]

How many tankfulls using zmax did you run to come up with your milage figure, and have you tried NOT using now to see if the milage goes back to where it was? I think we are all skeptics at heart, and really really need to be convinced to believe in what is snake oil, until proven geniune. And that proof takes years to accumulate. Cutting open an oil filter is a good idea, but then I have to ask if you cut open just THAT oil filter because you were curious, or do you cut open ALL your oil filters. A one-off situation will never stand as evidence in a snake oil trial.

 

[OLDBULL8]

Z-Max, STP, Motor Honey, Lucas and all those similar products are silicon based additives. If you want to drill a hole in tough steel or stainless steel they are great. Silicon creates less friction between two rubbing surfaces. Some of those products have a strong detergent in them, but so does dino oil contain a detergent.

Personally, I use Auto-RX in two treatments to clean an engine, (when over 100,000 miles) it's a slow process over 3000 miles in the 1st treatment, then the second treatment of 3000 miles really cleans. I have a 163,000 miles on my engine now, and have 2100 miles after the last oil change, the oil on the stick looks like the day I put it in, nice and clear. I'm surely not endorsing Auto-RX, just telling of my experience using it. For info on it www.auto-rx.com
Something to think about on oil passages in an engine. If you have a 1/16" hole and double the size to 1/8" it is 4 times the area, so any build up in an oil passage reduces the volume of flow considerably. Think about the small oil holes in a crank and those in the hyd. lifters. Volumes of oil carries away the heat.
This will make for a lot of discussion.

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

Z-Max, STP, Motor Honey, Lucas and all those similar products are silicon based additives.

Motor Honey ---- I hadn't seen that mentioned since I used to have the job of re-stocking the carry-in/carry-out oil-racks at our old HOMETOWN OIL service-station, way back in the early sixties.

That stuff was made by Bardahl, wasn't it ??

 

[Goofyexponent]

Ok, how about this?

An old mechanic told me years ago that if your motor had sticky valves, stuck rings or a lot of sledge in it, to do this. Drain the oil, pull the filter. Fill the engine and a new filter with ATF. Run it until it's warm, or about 1/2 an hour. Idle it, don't drive it. Then drain the atf, and pull the filter.

Put another new filter on and fill with your regular motor oil. I did it once to my S10's 2.8 carbed V6 and never had a problem with it.

I'd think with an IDI, you would want to do this with the motor already warm as a cold engine with thin ATF wouldn't make for a good coldstart. Plus you would only need to run it for about 10 minutes versus 1/2 an hour with a cold motor.

 

[MR.T]

Z-Max, STP, Motor Honey, Lucas and all those similar products are silicon based additives.

Not that it matters, but are you sure all these additives are really "silicone based"? 'Doesn't sound like what I remember reading, but it's been a long time.

Motor Honey ---- I hadn't seen that mentioned since I used to have the job of re-stocking the carry-in/carry-out oil-racks at our old HOMETOWN OIL service-station, way back in the early sixties.

'Haven't seen Motor Honey in a long time either -- but apparently it's still sold by Casite.

 

[HammerDown]

Just put some Graphite in the oil like Arco did back in the 70's...

Uh...NOT!

 

[MR.T]

Just put some Graphite in the oil like Arco did back in the 70's...

There was a trend that didn't end well! However, my truck came with a built-in system to add carbon (graphite) automatically to the engine oil. (diesel blowby )

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

Ok, how about this?

An old mechanic told me years ago that if your motor had sticky valves, stuck rings or a lot of sledge in it, to do this. Drain the oil, pull the filter. Fill the engine and a new filter with ATF. Run it until it's warm, or about 1/2 an hour. Idle it, don't drive it. Then drain the atf, and pull the filter.

Put another new filter on and fill with your regular motor oil. I did it once to my S10's 2.8 carbed V6 and never had a problem with it.

I'd think with an IDI, you would want to do this with the motor already warm as a cold engine with thin ATF wouldn't make for a good coldstart. Plus you would only need to run it for about 10 minutes versus 1/2 an hour with a cold motor.

Back in the old days, we ran a service-station, complete with an outside grease-pit out back.

The pit drain came out of the ground in a small creek, just upstream from the big springs where the city water-works got their water.

Whatever drained out went down that drain.


It was a common requested practice to drain the oil and dump the filter, re-install the filter and fill the crank-case with kerosene, run the engine a while, then drain the very black kerosene, install a new filter, and add the new oil.

Wealthier customers would pay for a couple more kerosene flush cycles before adding the new oil.

I wonder how a nasty old diesel would fair from such ??

 

[CDX825]

Ive heard of that done but I'm not convinced your going to get all the kerosene out unless you run a few oil flushes.

Todays oils clean pretty good so if you wanted to clean an engine running short oil change intervals would work. Safer than kerosene or diesel in the crankcase to.

Ive heard of a guy who was running nothing but ATF in his crankcase instead of oil and it worked fine. Its not something I would try with an IDI but mixing it with the oil to clean the engine would not worry me much.

ATF does seem to clean pretty good from what Ive seen. I was filling my buddies manual trans in his camaro with it and overflowed it. The trans was greasy and dirty and where the ATF ran down the side it revealed clean aluminum. Really surprised me considering how dirty the trans was.

 

[RLDSL]

ATF flushes is one of those fast flush cleans that used to be used ONLY before teardowns on very sludgy engines, and then somehow , someone in the mainstream got wind of it and started doing it thinking it was OK to do just any old time, BZZZT wrong. That is a real good way to trash an engine.

 

[idiabuse]

ATF flushes is one of those fast flush cleans that used to be used ONLY before teardowns on very sludgy engines, and then somehow , someone in the mainstream got wind of it and started doing it thinking it was OK to do just any old time, BZZZT wrong. That is a real good way to trash an engine.

All a complete waste.
The owner of a abused engine a waste.
ATF in the crankcase a waste.

It is like fixing a 30 year ciggarette smoker with an oxygen tank.
How good will the smoker be after sucking on oxygen? good as new?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>NOT!<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Javier

 

[OLDBULL8]

Just put some Graphite in the oil like Arco did back in the 70's...

Uh...NOT!

That was good until they found out graphite is an abrasive. Really good to make pencil's, #2 is nice and soft,or is #2 crap?