So Oldsmobile was the grandfather of the "rice burner" ? Damn, you learn something new everyday.... Best thing I've found for cleaning carbon from an engine that's complete & running is the old GM "top engine cleaner" that you pour down the carb with the engine hot & running. Don't know if they even make it anymore in this day of fuel injection. No clue what the ingredients were but it smelled alot like Clorox. I've known old timers to slowly pour a can of Coke into the carb of a running engine as well claiming that it burns off the carbon. I have seen that trick eliminate a skip in a high mileage engine a time or 2.
Paul Never done it that way but when I lived in the Ozarks it was common to drop a handfull of rice down the carb with the idle sped up and that seemed to work real well. At least lots of stuff would come out of the pipes on one that had straight pipes.
I've never seen the rice deal before. I've trickled water down the carbs throat with the rpm raised and watched carbon, muffler guts, all kinds of **** exit the pipe. I believe it will RE-SET an OXYGEN SENSOR also. I saw in a Clymer s****book once where a piece of flat link chain was used in a T or A or other similar type engines then fished out of the plug hole afterwards. Lippy
BEFORE THE AGE OF CAT. CONVERTERS, WE USED A MIXTURE OF ATF ( AUTO TRANS OIL ) AND WATER, AKA PEPTO-BIZMO. YOU GET THE ENGINE GOOD AND HOT AND SLOWLY POUR IT DOWN THROUGH THE CARB. AND FEATHER THE THROTTLE SO IT DOESN'T DIE. THE ONLY DOWN SIDE WAS YOUR NEIGHBORS WOULD WANT TO CALL THE FIRE POLICE DUE TO THE HORRIBLE SMOKE COMING OUT THE BACK !!!!!!!!! VERY EFFECTIVE FOR DECARBONIZATION OF THE COMBUSTION CHAMBER. GOLGOTHA.
I did this on a Chevy pickup a little old man had. It had the horrible low end carbon knock 350's get when you combine a 350 and an old man driving. About a 1/2 quart of fluid and a lot of smoke and it ran fine for several more years. He was ready to send it to an engine builder to fix. I knew about this from a friend that had just torn down his 350 to find the pistons were hitting a terrible carbon build up in the chambers. Secret is to drive fast and stay away from all town driving.
the top engine cleaner works very well, i believe it is still available from your local gm dealer. i know alot of old mec's that used the atf but i'd use the gm cleaner. walnut shells were used also.
I watched as the water trick was used on an engine that had a chunk of carbon making noise as it was hitting in the squish area. It worked like a charm. The text says that the rice is "specially prepared"...what ever that means. Water turns to steam which does the cleaning. I personally don't want rice debris in the combustion chamber of my engine.
probably cracked or steel cut, 'don't think it's like the sticky rice you get at the Chinese resturaunt I just thought it was an amusing clip I bet it leaves a bit of rice powder to gum up the rings whatever system used it would be a bandaid fix at best it's treating the symptom not the cause
Seems like a lot of work...why not just take it out on the E Way and run it WFO for a couple miles?....
About once every six weeks my granddad's 73 Dodge would get carboned up so bad that it wouldn't run. He would let it idle for hours on end out in the yard for some reason that I still don't understand and only drove about 35 mph on the way to and from town. I'd grab a bottle of trans fluid and run out and pick the car up and run it down the road to where I could pull over and while keeping the engine speed up around 2000/2500 rpm I'd slowly pour the trans fluid down the carb. When the bottle was empty I'd put the air cleaner back on and take off up the road in a cloud of smoke that would clear out after four or five miles and the car would run pretty good. A few more miles of 70 plus and the car was ready for another bout with Pa until I would have to do it over again. I wouldn't do it with anything with a cat on it though. I've also dribbled a bottle of water slowly down the throat of carbs while the engine "was running" on many occasions to clean the carbon out. That probably wouldn't bother later systems with Cats.
I've used water several times with good results and no problems, even with stock cast pistons. Often, a WFO p*** down the road will do the job.
My dad taught me to just leave it in a lower gear and go down highway at high RPM for a few miles. Then stand on it. Never failed to blow the carbon out of the old faimly car. That reminded me of a lesson learned. Back in the 1980s, I slowly poured B-12 down the carb of the wife's Pinto wagon once. It got the exhaust pipe so hot the oil build up on the outside of pipe started to burn down under the firewall. I jumped in and took off hauling down the street. The neighbor kids were all hollering and pointing. I yelled back, I KNOW, and kept going. Once it quit leaving a bad smoke trail I headed back home. I also fixed the valve cover oil leak that day too.
Wynns VIC works pretty good.....pour a little in through the spark plug bore and let it sit...cleans gummed up rings and carbon deposits.
I dropped some popcorn down a 6.2 diesel intake once, it ate it but it made more noise than cooking the stuff. (popped, un****ered, low salt, it was a 6.2 the popcorn tasted awfull, I figured either way no big loss.)
Did this a hundred times in the 90's while working at an AUDI dealership. The "mini-blaster" used walnut shells and worked quite well. We had to do alot of them for hard starting problems with all the carbon getting saturated before they would fire up.
our band teacher bought a NEW "67 GTO" wow i loved that car! he drove 40 mph most the time . we would bring it back to the pontiac dealer for a tune up. the guys out back would fight to work on it. the tune up, out on the black top for a few hours, beat the sh** out of it!!!! to funny!!
Those big Pontiac motors were bad about carbon buildup. A buddy let his wife drive his new 1968 400ho sometimes. She would soon start to gripe about how bad it was running. He would always flog the **** out of it and never had that problem. But a short trip with him once a week was all it needed.
GM top engine cleaner and ATF mixed 50/50 back when you could get it was great. I remember people on the street on a test drive would tell me the car was on fire! The old top engine cleaner had real nasty ingrediants that were bad for us I guess. We called it pepto bismal also.
Water but the old timers used to use kerosene in the old days, it burns hotter and smokes up the whole neighborhood but cleaned them out.I believe seafoam contains kerosene. Dont let it kill while useing as you will have to pull and clean plugs.
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