Anyone seen transmission fluid dumped in carburetor?

[myersjeremy]

Watched a guy dump nearly a half a quart of ATF down his carburetor on an '85 with a 350. Made a heck of a smoke-screen!!! According to him it gives some of the same benefits as adding ATF to the fuel in diesel engines. Anyone have any knowledge or experience with this?

[Oldtruckfanatic]

Thats an old timers trick for freeing sticky valves An old timer taught me on an old tractor. it had a 6 in it that would stick the valves so it was hard to start When that happened we would pour some atf in the gas tank and a little down the carb and turn it til it started. It always chugged along on two or three cylinders until it started to get some of the atf on the valve stems and you could hear it pick up cylinders one at a time until it was purring. I have no idea why anyone would pour it down the throat of a modern vehicle that tractor was older than I am.

[f.monroe]

I have seen ATF , water , a combination , etc dumped down carbs or throttle bodies to loosen carbon buildup in the cylinders . An older mechanic poured water down a 4.0 L Jeep that was making a noise that sounded like a rod knock . I worked at the dealership at the time and he said there had been several problems with carbon in those engines . He revved it and started dumping the water slowly until it choked the engine down . It took a half soda can of water but it stopped the noise . That ws a fuel injected 4.0 . GM sells ( or used to ) a product called Top Engine Cleaner that is designed for removing carbon . I used it on a 1984 454 3/4 ton I had that developed a knock . After checking it out I determined it was carbon buildup in the cylinder . It took two applications but it worked . It only smoked for about a day then it was back to normal . The problem is that if liquid is poured down a running engine too fast , It can be bad . I think Holley used to sell a water injection kit in the 80's to cut down on detonation . It kept the cylinders cleaner so there werent hot spots and it cooled the cylinders a little . Frank

[Oldtruckfanatic]

Ahhh. I see, I have seen water from a spray bottle sprayed in a carb for that reason but never the ATF. Like I said it did work on the sticky valves really well. I remember those water injection setups Never really caught on. Didn't they do that on a european car for a while? seems like I saw it on something once.

[72armyswbtruck]

Humn, wonder what, I think that I am going to have to ask my old man about it.

[jimfulco]

I did it on a '72 Nova with the carbon-based pseudo-rod-knock. Set the motor on fast-idle, dribbled ATF down the primary side until the motor died, and let it sit for an hour, then started it up and drove it Italian-tune-up-style for a few blocks until the smoke stopped. No more knock.

[Russell]

Some additional info in this topic:

http://coloradok5.com/forums/showthread.php?t=174202

[Malo83]

Forgive my ignorance , but what is SEA-FOAM and where do you get it???
John

[bcubed]

Originally Posted by Malo83

Forgive my ignorance , but what is SEA-FOAM and where do you get it???
John

Seafoam is liek the GM topend cleaner, you let it suck up via your brake booster vacuum line till the engine stalls, let it sit 20-30 mins or so then run it (will smoke like crazy) .. supposed to clean out built up carbon .. I've used it on 2 older vehicles with no damage, can't really say it did much for them .. but the smoke was impressive

[eagle23]

Originally Posted by Malo83

Forgive my ignorance , but what is SEA-FOAM and where do you get it???
John

I've found it at NAPA stores and Autozone; it's probably available at other places, too.

[87 STEPPER]

I would say i was about 10 years old and the guy about 4 houses down was reving his 69 firebird up and all i could see was this huge cloud of white smoke comming from this car so i rode down there on my bike to ck it out and i asked him what was wrong with his car and he said nothing and i asked why is it smoking so much and he said cuz i put ATF in the carb.

I aksed why and he said i do it once a year just to keep things lubed up good i had no idea what he ment by that but i told him do it some more cuz it was kool.

Some one in our neighbrohood must of thought his car was on fire and called the fire dept. cuz about 10 min later the fire trucks showed up at his house to put out a car fire.

That was also kool

[kevinr1970]

When I was going to school I worked graveyard at a gas station. A guy used to come in every so often in an older Datsun 280z. He would put half bottle of ATF in every tank of gas. He said it provided upper cylinder lubrication. He also said something about all the detergents in ATF helped keep the valves and cyclynders clean.
I talked to someone later that was supposed to be knowledgeable about this type of stuff and he said BS? But some of the stuff he told about other things came out to be BS too?