Seafoam for carbon removal

Tomme boy

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
I have a case of this stuff for running through 2 stroke engines I have had. I had a 150hp DI v6 outboard on my ranger bass boat that I did a deep soak at the end of the year. You basically warmed the motor the removed the fuel filter and dump it out. Then fill it with the seafoam Then start it and runt till it dies from not having fuel. Let it sit about 1/2 hour and then fill the filter with fuel again. Get it running again and rev it a little to blow out the carbon. And boy does it!

Anyway. I was thinking on filling up the bore on my mosin and let it soak for a day. I don't think there is anything in it that would hurt anything. A little ethanol is one of the components. but that should not do anything. I know a lot of people swear by this stuff for keeping the carbon lose so it blows out the exhausts.
 
Bret4207

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I haven't seen the tremendous good results some people go on about with Seafoam. OTOH, Berrymans B12 has worked more often than not. I think all the "mechanic in a bottle" stuff tends to be real heavy on petroleum distillates like Benzine.
 
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Thumbcocker

Active Member
I have used Berryman's for carbon rings on handgun cylinders. It dies good. Berruman's is sold at O'Reilly auto parts and is banned in some states it will eat nitrile gloves so be careful.
 
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JonB

JonB

Halcyon member
The MSDS mentions Iso Alc, but not Ethanol.

A long time ago, a Radio Auto-Talk guy (Paul Brand), who advertised Seafoam, said it only has 3 ingredients and it's basic formulation was 1/3 Stoddard solvent, 1/3 highly refined oil, 1/3 Iso Alc.
 
JonB

JonB

Halcyon member
I've tried the Seafoam carbon removal thingy more than once and failed, and it's likely the carbon deposits were too severe to be chemically dissolved or loosened.

My use of Seafoam is limited to the fuel systems of small engines. The magic it seems to do, is clean the carb that's on the edge of not running. Like a chainsaw that won't start, but kind of fires a little, so you know it has spark. Dump out the old gas, put a small dose of fresh gas/oil mix (just so the fuel pickup can draw fuel ...and a equal dose of Seafoam. Then try to start it. If the problem was some old slimey varnish in the carb, the Seafoam will clean it, without disassembly, most of the time. Last Fall, I did this with a small 6.5hp Honda engine I got from a garage sale that had been poorly stored for some time (came off a pressure washer), anyway, that made it run without disassembly.
 
Bret4207

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
JonB said:
I've tried the Seafoam carbon removal thingy more than once and failed, and it's likely the carbon deposits were too severe to be chemically dissolved or loosened.

My use of Seafoam is limited to the fuel systems of small engines. The magic it seems to do, is clean the carb that's on the edge of not running. Like a chainsaw that won't start, but kind of fires a little, so you know it has spark. Dump out the old gas, put a small dose of fresh gas/oil mix (just so the fuel pickup can draw fuel ...and a equal dose of Seafoam. Then try to start it. If the problem was some old slimey varnish in the carb, the Seafoam will clean it, without disassembly, most of the time. Last Fall, I did this with a small 6.5hp Honda engine I got from a garage sale that had been poorly stored for some time (came off a pressure washer), anyway, that made it run without disassembly.
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I would be super careful with 2 strokes and Seafoam or any other alcohol bearing solvent. This goes double for lean mix ratio fuel mixes like 50-1 or leaner, especially with ethanol bearing fuels. Alcohols do nothing good in a 2 stroke IMO.

I've tried soaking ethanol varnished carbs in straight Seafoam and Berrymans. Neither was real impressive, but the edge, if there was one, went to Berrymans. Straight acetone won't touch the varnish, nor will mineral spirits, paint thinner, lye or paint remover. Xylene will work on some of it. In the end a stainless brush and scrapers is all I've found that really works.
 
JonB

JonB

Halcyon member
Bret4207 said:
I would be super careful with 2 strokes and Seafoam or any other alcohol bearing solvent. This goes double for lean mix ratio fuel mixes like 50-1 or leaner, especially with ethanol bearing fuels. Alcohols do nothing good in a 2 stroke IMO.

I've tried soaking ethanol varnished carbs in straight Seafoam and Berrymans. Neither was real impressive, but the edge, if there was one, went to Berrymans. Straight acetone won't touch the varnish, nor will mineral spirits, paint thinner, lye or paint remover. Xylene will work on some of it. In the end a stainless brush and scrapers is all I've found that really works.
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I don't knowingly use ethanol bearing fuels in any of my small engines, except maybe my old snapper rider lawn mower with an old 8hp Tecumseh, which seems to run on anything and is the repository for any old gas I come across, LOL.

Maybe varnish is the incorrect word for the old slimey deposits I've cleaned from Carburetors, when I "had" to disassemble them. Spray Carb Cleaner washes the old slimey deposits out easily...So in my mind, I assume that's what the Seafoam is doing when I run the 50/50 (seafoam/gas) mix. Heck maybe it's cleaning a carboned up spark plug? how knows?
 
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RicinYakima

RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
I was introduced to it when the 3500 watt Yamaha generator that lives in the bed of my truck, for 14 years, developed a leaking shut valve. Every bounce down the road would make a drop fall into the carburetor. Last labor day I could not get it to start as the combustion chamber was full of gas. While fixing and airing that out, the parts guy said to put a can of Seafoam in the tank. By the time the tank was empty, the value quit leaking. Worked for that issue and never had it hard to start again.
 
Bret4207

Bret4207

At the casting bench in the sky. RIP Bret.
I suppose it depends on the particular crap that you are getting. I've seen "slime", "goo", "taffy", "crusty sugar", "molasses" and "varnish". The light colored slime is the easiest to get rid of. The crusty sugar/varnish is the worst. I am 100% convinced it depends entirely on your local gas blends, down to which store and pump you buy it from and what you mix it with as far as who has issues and who doesn't. There are lots of guys out there that never, ever have a problem and others, like me, who face a 100% guarantee that putting their local E-10 in certain machines will lead to serious issues- like destroying a carbs gaskets and pumps made of unobtainium.

As far as my comments on 2 strokes and alcohol, that's more to do with lubrication than carb/fuel system issues. Alcohol does nothing good when mixed with oil. Wind your saw out to 14,500 rpm, lean it out and have a teeny air leak on a crank seal and you will soon find out why air quality tunings are nothing but money for saw builders! Better safe than sorry IMO when it comes to that type of thing- and I've got the sad stories of fine saws ruined when I played that game. And I'm not even touching on what alcohol does to older "rubber" and "plastic"!

If you have crap in the carb of most small engines, that crap will never dissolve. It will either adhere to the inner surfaces or wind up in the screens or passages forever. A teeny bit you can tune around. A bunch of it you will have to remove it physically.

Removing carbon is something else altogether. Plain water under pressure and heat will remove most carbon eventually. It was common practice to clean a carboned engine/valves by drizzling water into the carb of a running engine. It worked and you didn't run much risk of hurting anything. Chemically removing it? I think it again depends on exactly what we mean by "carbon". It's all the extra stuff in the mix that spells success or wasted $.
 
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CWLONGSHOT

CWLONGSHOT

Well-Known Member
I am a big fan of Sea -Foam

On my old jeeps it was night and day improvements in fuel systems after application. St least three maybe four times repeated.

I also use it as a treatment for ethanol when fueling my sxs.

Interesting idea using it on a gun barrel. I agree with Ian I cannot imagine any damage to any metal part.

Love ta hear your results.

CW
 
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Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
Seafoam as a gun cleaning solvent, I'm going to claim ignorance. Can't see much harm to metal but I'm doubtful on any great results.

Seafoam as a "mechanic in a bottle", it is totally on par with all of the other magic "mechanic in a bottle" products, which is to say it is somewhere between "eh" and "a waste of money".
Using alcohol to remove small amounts of water in fuel is an old trick and one with a decent track record. Using any of the various cleaners to attack a partially varnished fuel system is HIGHLY dependent on the severity of the problem. If the varnish or other gunk isn't that bad, the solution in a bottle will sometimes get you over the immediate problem. I've never been terribly impressed with any of those products and think there is a tremendous amount of confirmation bias involved. (I spent $10 on this magic bottle and the engine runs better, when in fact it would have run better even if you had done nothing)
 
Tomme boy

Tomme boy

Well-Known Member
If you have never messed with a DI engine, these treatments are mandatory. Yamaha has one of the strongest cleaners out there for this.

I left the seafoam in the barrel overnight. i got all kinds of black out of the bore. Now it looks like the first half of the barrel is solid copper. So it is now soaking with a foaming copper remover. One thing i am seeing is the barrel looks like it was re blued during a refurb. or it is just dark from the corrosive salts. There is a very lite amount of pitting that is showing up that I have not seen the first time looking at it with the bore scope. So the seafoam must have lifted some of the carbon that was removed.

I am going to check the bore again later tonight after the foam has had a night to soak.
 
JonB

JonB

Halcyon member
I count myself lucky, as I haven't seen all these evils of alcohol on fuel systems of my small engine equipment. But I did say I use only non-oxygenated gas in my small engines (except the Snapper 8hp). The tiny amount used on the rare occasions I need to do a seafoam treatment (as prescribed above) surely hasn't hurt anything in the 20+ years I've been doing it.

I have heard the local landfill processes the Methanol coming out of our County's Trash Mountain for powering four electrical Generators, and that fuel is crazy corrosive, and that the frequent repairs make the Electricity cost prohibitive, except for the Tax credits they get from the State and Fed in the name of clean energy, LOL. BTW, they have four Generators because there is almost always one or two of them down for repairs...and the Gas never stops coming out of the mountain, so they need at least two gen's running all the time.
 
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Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
JonB said:
I have heard the local landfill processes the Methanol coming out of our County's Trash Mountain for powering four electrical Generators, and that fuel is crazy corrosive, and that the frequent repairs make the Electricity cost prohibitive, except for the Tax credits they get from the State and Fed in the name of clean energy, LOL. BTW, they have four Generators because there is almost always one or two of them down for repairs...and the Gas never stops coming out of the mountain, so they need at least two gen's running all the time.
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I suspect that is Methane (CH4) being extracted from a landfill and not Methanol (CH3OH).

Lots of landfills capture and burn off the methane that is a by-product of decomposing trash.
 
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