Technical Marvel mystery oil inverse oiler

Inline flathead engines are prone to sticky valves if left for long periods especially in humid conditions. The position of the valves encourages moisture gum and carbon to accumulate on the valve guides and valves causing the sticking. OHV engines valves are in a position that allows such things to drain away more easily and for more oil to get at them when running.
If an old engine is frozen up most likely the problem is stuck valves in an inline flathead, or rusty cylinders and seized pistons in an OHV engine.

 

Back in the early 70's a local auto supply was clearing out old inventory. The owner gave my dad a couple of cases of Motor Rythm. He used it to kill weeds by the back fence.

 

Back in the early 60's when I worked at a Texaco station, I used to see many old cars with upper cylinder oilers. I mostly remember the ones with glass jars.

 

My dad had one on his '57 Ford after his '54 Y-block had valve train issues

 

BS My wife pulled in one day and her AUDI 400s was going Click Click Click. I poured about 3 oz of Marvel into the crankcase and Purrrrr

 

Use to be pretty common and Marvel mystery oil was sold as an upper cylinder lube for sticky rings and valves. Both were relatively low mileage maintenance items. The car units were adjustable. As a very young teen I worked at a trucking company running gas powered tractors. We had Marvel mystery in 55 gallon drums and at every fill up a quart of Marvel was dumped into each saddle tank.

 

Well, if you don't change the oil until it becomes oxidized and leaves lacquer deposits and sludge in the engine, than yeah, some cheap napthenic oil will loosen up the crap.

 

The smaller Marvel can has an attachment on top; looks like a perfume sprayer. I have had it a couple of years but haven't done the research yet to find out what it is for. Any ideas? Sorry for the lousy photo.

 

Sore throat. Jack E/NJ

 

Yea. That's gotta be it.

 

Wow… memories. I grew up on a large cattle ranch my grandparents homesteaded in New Mexico sometime between 1900-1912.. They were born in 1889/1892. They sold the ranch to my dad in 62 and I came along not long after.

Understand we weren't rich. We needed equipment to last. So like a lot of folks, we don't lie or do things that take advantage of people. So when Marvel Mystery oil says it will make an engine last longer, we tended to believe it IF others who use the product make similar claims.. We literal had these inverse oilers on every pickup, tractor, car, generator, welder and two old Fairbanks Morris single cylinder pump motors (the kind with the crank shaft having two massive cast iron flywheels about 30-36” in diameter).

Anyway we connected then to a vacuum line or into the carberator so that put a drop of Marvel Mystery oil into the air fuel mixture. Dad believed it helped keep carbon buildup down. We overhauled out own motors at the ranch’s shop. We pull them out, apart and then take the block, heads etc to a machine shop. We then would put them back together. Most of our heavy maintenance was done between December and March. This is the period where we don’t need to work with the livestock other than to ensure they’re safe and uninjured etc. We had 25 square miles of land in the Sacramento and Guadeloupe mountains of New Mexico, so checking on livestock meant driving or riding horseback to the various livestock watering tanks, and salt, mineral and molases/urea tank locations.

We stopped using them in the late 80’s. By then, the complexity of the fuel system made it more difficult to tie into them. Dad continued to pour some into the gas tank every refueling.

I read a lot about oil, oil additives, fuel and fuel additives. I'm convinced that oil additives are 99.9% of the time destructive and truthfully should be regulated, that is they must be certified by the chemical and mechanical engineers who, through rigorous testing show how the additive helps.

I've also come to the conclusion that fuel additives are absolutely beneficial. I always buy Top Tier fuels and I run an additive in those fuels every 3rd tank of gas. The science and engineering testing by third parties are abundant and proove that fuels with beneficial additives keep the fuel system, and some engine components much cleaner.

 

There was a parts store near my parents house that went out of business. My dad helped clean the place out. He brought home a couple of cases of Motor Rythm which were quite old in the 70's. He used it to kill weeds; said it worked pretty good.

 

Redex competitor back in the day.

I thought we had come a long way since then but now we have adblue and DPF fluid tanks plumbed in to our motors.

 

There’s one in my 55 Lincoln, my neighbor at the shop is a really big hot rod guy, just retired from work and he hasn’t seen one of these! I think it’s super cool