Hot Rods Bonami and other snake oils questions

I have a Y block Ford, sat many years and I resurrected it. It runs great, don't smoke but does have blowby and has used over a quart of oil in a couple tanks of gas, mostly short drives around town. Of course a good rebuild would be the best advice but that investment isn't in the cards right now. I've heard of the Bonami trick since I was a kid in the 60s and a couple old timers who thought it worked but no empirical evidence that it can do more good than harm. Opinions? How about snake oils? Any good additives that are known to work? thanks

 

Some folks report a reduction in oil consumption by using a different oil.
Here:
peachparts.com/shopforum/tech-help/89766-would-you-use-stp-temporarily-fix-oil-burning.html

 

The Bonami trick was supposed to remove the glazing from the bores. A compression test will tell you a lot, you may just have worn valve stem seals, or you may have no rings left.!

 

How old is the oil? Plans to change it any time soon? If so, run a pint of trans fluid through it for 5-10 min then let it sit for a day or so. Do the oil change and hope for the best. The trans fluid may loosen stuck rings and clea out other places that are coked up with carbon and burned oil residues. Safe, sometimes effective, no guarantees though. I poured some of that "Restore" snake oil in a Jeep I flipped many years ago. It worked, stopped using oil, stopped smoking when 1st started. How long it lasted? Well the kid around the corner drove it for 4 years as a daily. That's all I got.

 

I would try a higher viscosity of oil.


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We used the Bonami 'trick" in our sprint car between double features to deglaze the cylinder walls, however, it is not for long term use as it would wear the rings. We replaced the rings after every full feature as we were running 15 to1 compression. ONLY use Bonami as it has no hard grit like Ajax.

 

And after all these years I thought bonami was for cleaning ba*****t windows.

 

'Back in the day', the chrome rings of the day were notoriously hard to break in (no soft moly coating). BonAmi was the 'fix'...

 

Rumor has it that Chevy did this at the Dealers in 1955 as a fix.

 

It depends what the problem is. Cylinder glazing , is a hard, shiny smooth surface, almost like teflon. Important to avoid this, one reason why engine break-in is done right away. Could see trying something like Bon-Ami (in this situation) on an old high mileage engine because there is nothing to lose. Back in the day a lot of "shade tree" rebuilds probably revolved around honing cylinder bores to remove glaze and reinstalling the same rings back in the same bores?

But another problem with old engines is old oil and fuel that turns to carbon and goo. Rings get stuck/gummed in the lands. Marvels is good stuff for this, maybe transmission fluid is similar or even better but I know this works and is safe. Always use it in the fuel and oil both, per directions, 4oz per 10 gallons gas and replace 1 quart crankcase oil with it. It is basically a light oil w/solvent and penetrating oil, that's what makes it work. Get the engine tuned up and make a highway run or two and the compression may surprise you and blowby go way down.

 

Unplug the drain holes in the heads ...

 

19Fordy interesting link.Thanks Bruce.

 

You probably already have vertical cylinder scoring from starting the engine after sitting for many years. The Bonami trick will only perpetuate it.

You will have to hone the cylinder to get the right cross-hatch and install new rings to stop the oil from getting by the rings. Sorry, I know you didn't want to hear that.

You might try some Lucas Oil Stabilizer and hope for the best.

 

Funny BonAmi story: Back in the day, I worked for a truck dealership. One customer had a reman 6 cylinder engine replaced in his truck (501 ci). The rings were not seating in and it was using oil. He brought it back and the Service Manager had an apprentice take it out in the yard, rev it up and "sprinkle" BonAmi down the carb. Well, as luck would have it, the top fell off the can and most of the BonAmi went down the carb. YUP, you guessed, it seized up. SO, if you are going to try it, be sure the top stays on the can.

 

Bonami was used when new rings did not seat after an overhaul. Pouring fine sand in your engine is not the best thing you could do.

 

That is the exact reason my auto shop instructor gave when he told us about it when we were doing the engine rebuild segment of cl*** as sophomores in high school. I never had need or occasion to try it but know a few guys who had cause to try it in the 70's when they bought chrome rings for a rering job and the rings wouldn't seat.
When I worked in a Pontiac dealership in Texas in the mid 70's the guy who did the engine rebuilds always used cast rings rather than chrome rings on rering jobs for that same reason. The cast seated quickly and we had happy customers with cars that didn't burn oil. He said if the engine had been bored with new pistons he would put in chrome rings but he had seen too many comebacks for burning oil with them in engines that got new rings and bearings and a valve job.

 

If the engine has set undriven for a long period of time, there's a chance that the rings are sticking a bit in the piston grooves. Just driving it with a good oil and filter change may eventually free up the rings and clear up the blow-by.

You might also consider adding a detergent additive with the next oil change or two. Something like SeaFoam or Marvel Mystery Oil would be appropriate. You could also use a bottle of GM Posi Track additive which is a detergent additive that breaks down the varnish and glaze on the posi clutch plates. Dealers have used it in motor oil to free up sticky hydraulic lifters and piston rings.

Also make sure your crankcase venting is in proper working order.

 

1941 "Service News" updates from Buick, & probably Chevrolet, cover the Bon-Ami drill. 10mm plugs, tin plated pistons, & low speed driving all helped cause new car ring seating failure.

 

When I was a teenager I went to a cl*** put on by Perfect Circle Their regiment for breaking in chrome rings set every thing as close as possible start it up do a quick check for fluids leaking Take the car out and do ten 40 to 60 accelerations in high gear to really load the engine . Then go back to the shop and set timing valves and so on. They claimed That by the time you set timing, valves and carb the rings were already glazed. I have followed this and never had rings fail to seat.

 

What about the ~ 20 minutes breaking in the cam? Have heard the same thing though. Rings will not break in or seat to cylinder walls properly without being under load. The reward is a smoother, longer lasting engine with little to no oil consumption, better compression, stem climate change and win the war for the allies.

 

Resilone is good for sticky rings and it does the job while you drive.

Sent from my SM-J700T1 using The H.A.M.B. mobile app

 

Eeeeesh! Not a fan of using aftermarket oil additives, nor of pouring any abrasive material down the intake!

One of the most frequent killers of heavy duty diesel engines is "dusting" of the engine, i.e. when the air filter fails for one reason or another and allows unfiltered air containing silicon (the stuff they make sand out of) into the engine. It will kill an engine quickly, wearing out the piston rings and cylinder bores and causing a ton of blow by. Not to mention the increased wear throughout the engine as the stuff makes its way into the oil and get's pumped throughout the engine, acting as grinding paste and opening up clearances all over the engine. And some people intentionally pour this into the engine? Does that really sound like a good idea to you?

Cylinder bores get polished, what some refer to as "glazed" because carbon deposits build up in the ring grooves and on the lands preventing free movement of the rings. If you were to view a cut away of a piston ring in a groove you'd see the groove is much wider than the ring, which often has a taper to it. This causes the ring to tilt in the groove when the piston moves up & down, so that the face of the ring does not line up square against the cylinder bore, it rides at an angle. When deposits build up in the groove and prevent the free movement of the rings it causes the rings to ride square against the cylinder bore, this causes much more of the ring to contact the bore than is supposed to, leading to the polished surface. So, unless the deposits are removed, it doesn't matter even if the Bonami was successful in removing the polishing, because it is just going to come back again due to the deposits in the ring grooves. So, even if this is something that was done to ***ist the breaking in of hard chrome piston rings in a new engine, with good crosshatch pattern on the cylinder bores and clean piston ring grooves, even if that is true, that doesn't mean it's going to work on an old engine with a polished bore and deposit buildup on the pistons.

Anybody that has spent evenings cleaning carbon deposits off of old pistons knows how hard these are and how difficult it is to remove then, even after soaking in solvents. I really don't think adding a little ATF or MMO is going to do the trick.

 

Whew!

 

Roughly 60 years ago my brother and I "rebuilt" my first engine. A flathead Ford of course. My dad was directing all this, and he decided it needed oversize wrist pins. So he brought home an expansion reamer from work and Jeff and I reamed the pistons and rods for a tight fit. Then my dad had us polish the bores to a snug slip fit using Bon Ami.I remember this because I was impressed that it was a pretty good abrasive. Today, if I see anybody pouring abrasive in my engine, I'm going for my 45. Why not just pour lapping compound in it?

 

Its a boat anchor Y block ford. Very few of them do not have excessive blow by. Most leak at the rear main seal. retrofit a PCV system. and run a hose from the oil fill tube to the air cleaner base inside the filter. the oily blow by will kinda seal the compression rings a bit. The best solution is to swap in a FE or some other better design engine.

 

Unless he pulls the pan intake valley cover and valve covers and cleans all the sludge out of the engine all that lucas or any other motor honey type additive will do is clog the screen on the oil pump.

 

Yep, that was the recommended break-in for chrome rings. 'Drive it like ya stole it' for the first 20 minutes or so... The chrome rings also needed a pretty rough cylinder finish; if you honed them too smooth, the rings wouldn't seat.

Saw the BonAmi trick used more than a few times, it did work if done right....

 

Use lower gears to keep the rpm up on way the highway. In my case I live in the country so I'm on the road after 100 yards. Most ring and valve jobs do not replace cam. With cast or molly rings just blipping the throttle during cam breakin helps.

 

Oil goes in the crankcase. Gasoline goes in the tank. Bon Ami goes under the sink.

 

I think a quart of oil every 2 tanks of gas would be low for a used Y block. My uncle had a 58 Ford F250 with a 272 on the farm in the late 60s. Every time it was used you filled the oil and checked the gas. It was seldom driven more than a couple of miles. Every so often a spark plug would come out.
He bought a cottage on a lake and was thinking about hauling some things with the truck but decided he would need more oil than gas.

We had a cabover Ford that we hauled a stock car with that had a 292 in it the first year and it took 2 quarts of 50 weight oil to 20 gallons of gas. We put a 429 in it to save gas and oil.