Has anyone used and had success with MMO? Here's my situation and why I am considering it. When I got my 72 Cutlass 350 2bbl 80K miles a couple years ago it was blowing some blueish smoke and using oil. Initially had about 105 psi compression across the board. I've drove it through the first season with frequent oil changes using a high zinc oil along with Restore engine restorer. Did valve seals this year and cleaned up a lot of sludge under the valve covers during this time. Have continued the frequent oil changes with engine restore and try my hardest to only drive it if I was going to make it a good hot run (to avoid short drives). Compression has raised up to 120 psi across the board and it runs great. While that is a good sign, it is consuming a lot of oil (roughly 1 quart per 100 miles) and will billow blueish smoke after letting off the gas on the highway (deceleration). Without doing a leak down test, I am guessing that the rings are either worn or stuck as the vehicle was only driven about 3K miles in the 35 years prior to my possession. It has been recommended to me in the past to give MMO a try so here I am ready to give it a try. I am looking to see if the recommendation is to soak the cylinders or to just add it to the oil or both. Let me know your thoughts and experiences. Thanks!

Mike

 

I've run it as one quart of oil, and it didn't do much. You may need to do an Italian tuneup.

 

Koda,

That's pretty much what I was prepared to do. Do you have a recommendation of how much MMO I should use to soak the cylinders? I've read 1-2 ounces in each cylinder.

 

1-2 ounces probably isn't enough due to the angle of the pistons in a V engine. In an upright Inline engine it might be enough. For a ring soak to be effective the entire top of the piston should be covered. Put some liquid of your choice e.g., KROIL from Kano Labs into the cylinder and look with a light or borescope to insure complete piston coverage.

Two ways of doing this come to mind, one would be to put a sufficient quantity of oil to just cover the piston but that could get messy, the other way would be to jack up one side of the car a lot and soak the high side. Whatever method is used it is critical to crank the engine over before putting the plugs back in or it may bend a rod, break a ring land or damage something else.

After the ring soak is completed get the car hot and run it hard using full throttle bursts from 20-50 mph and off-throttle coasts from 50-20 mph about ten times. This causes the rings to move back and forth in the lands if they are not completely stuck.

Good luck!!!

 

Sugar Bear,

That's great information. Looks like rain all weekend here so I guess I'll do one side at a time with the car elevated. I'll update about this time next week with the results.

Mike

 

Consider doing an oil and filter change after it warms up and burns off the solvent in the combustion chambers but before driving it hard. The solvent will leak past the rings and into the crankcase.

 

We use MMO to help free up and lubricate engine / cylinders which have been sitting for a while.

 

Sea Foam did wonders to free up the carbon'd up engine in my boat. It did have good compression when I bought it but dieseled like hell when it was shut down. The previous owner had run it for who know how many years with the timing set at zero. It took about 5 tanks of gas, at a can of sea foam a tank, to clear the soot that shot out every time I started it.

 

Old trick for sticky lifters
Run a quart of trans fluid in oil, drive , change. ( drain 1 quart of oil of coarse )

 

It's great for cleaning sludge also.

 

Well it was definitely messy but all cylinders are currently soaking. And yes, for sure used more than 2 ounces per cylinder, more like 4-6. I plan on letting them soak all weekend. Here's to hoping that the rings free up (if that's the problem) and oil consumption goes down.

 

I use MMO, don't know if it works or not. Had a super old timer tell me to use it. He seemed legit, so I do it.

 

Keep an eye on the cylinders as they may need to be topped off. If any cylinders seem to leak more than others those are the ones with leaky rings.

Hope it works!!!

 

You might want to pull all of the spark plugs before turning the engine over to blow out the excessive oil. You don't want to bend a rod from locking up the piston from oil in the combustion chamber.

 

If you'll take a sniff of MMO you will smell wintergreen oil, which is a fairly powerful solvent and corrosion buster. Used to use straight wintergreen oil on steam turbine bolts that had seized up.

Some people write off MMO, SeaFoam and the like as snake oil, but the stuff is based on sound chemistry. It wouldn't have stayed around long as it has if it didn't work.

 

About 5 years ago, my neighbor's Old Infinity from the 1990's developed what sounded like a loud rod knock to all of us. Other neighbor, 80yo, who used to do machine and car repair suggested adding some MMO to the crankcase. He was right. Much to our surprise the noise disappeared and the engine was fixed. We figure that the noise must have been a lifter. That is my story and I'm stickin to it.

 

Kleenflo Combustion Chamber Cleaner works to gain compression and free rings. I gained as much as 35 psi and cut oil burning in half. I bent connecting rods filling cylinders. Get it hot, soak the cylinders overnight and leave the plugs out and crank it over.

 

I haven't heard of that product. Can we get it here in the States or is it a Canadian-market product?

 

Well 24 hours has passed and every cylinder needed topped off. Not sure which way to take it...either all of the rings have even wear or they all were sticky and this will hopefully free them up. Either way I topped them all off (what a messy job) and will continue to let them soak.

 

Can't wait to hear what happens next ... subscribed!

 

Good question., looks like if is a Canadian product. I have tried Marvel Mystery Oil and Seafoam, both did nothing. This stuff will clean spark plugs like new if soaked for a few hours, it works.

 

Current update. It has soaked for about 5-6 days with multiple manual engine turns and MMO top offs. Manually turned over the engine, disconnected the fuel line to the carb, then covered the spark plug holes with towels and turned over by key to pump out as much fluid as possible. Drained the oil pan as I knew that each cylinder took quite a bit of MMO during the soaking process. Refilled the crankcase and installed plugs and fuel line. Fired right up with a lot of exhaust smoke. This job is definitely a messy one. Smoke burning off the manifolds amongst other engine components. Exhaust smoke did disappear almost completely after my driving it hard with multiple throttle bursts. Not sure if it's my imagination, but I honestly feel as if the idle was much smoother than previous. I plan on driving it pretty good this weekend so I'll see if the oil consumption has improved and will also do another compression test to look for improvement there as well.

 

Thanks for the update... curious about the effect on compression and oil consumption.

 

Sorry for the delay in my update but life happens lol. So here it is, after some good highway driving it is looking pretty good. I have no smoke or oil coming from exhaust any more. This includes first start up and also deceleration like I did prior to this procedure. Oil consumption has dropped significantly and so far I'm down to about 4 ounces every 100 miles. I know that is not perfect by any means but I'll take it as it can help me move along a bit more before I need to worry about that overhaul. I haven't had the opportunity to do a compression test but I will also say that the acceleration, idle, and response have all improved. I will continue to drive with the MMO and check the compression in the next week or so. Honestly expecting some good results there.