ATF in engine oil??

[Jmac05]

I heard this guy tell my wife to put in a quart of ATF in with your oil 100-200 miles before your 50,000 and 100,000... oil change. He said the ATF acts like a detergent, and will clean everything out, all the old sludge and crud. But, once you get it changed, you have to have the engine flushed. Anyone know about this?

[Blazer1970]

I believe that is true to some extent. I also would never, ever, do that to an old engine that is full of sludge. The only way to clean it out is to disassemble the engine. The only way to keep it clean is with regular oil changes.

[mikep]

Sludge and junk and schmag in your engine doesnt hurt anyone. If you dislodge the stuff your'e likely to get it caught in your oil pump pickup and starve your engine for oil. If your real worried about the stuff then tear it apart, hot tank the engine and rebuild it and then never , I mean NEVER use anything made by the Penzoil. That hi parafin Pennsylvania oil is the root of all evil.

[Jmac05]

Yeah, the guy said not to use penzoil. Is quaker state made by them too?

[mooneyes]

yes quaker sludge bought out penzoil and none of there oil comes from Pa anymore and hasnt for a few years now...it comes from Texas...so you better blame Texas for the root of all evil...lol

[crazy longhorn]

I run castrol in the longhorn, but have run penz in evey thing else.....have for yrs. I beleive that sludge comes from lack of maintainance. i change my oil & filters every 2-3000 mi on the city run vehicles, & have torn down engines that i ran (and hard) for 100,000 plus......& didnt find any sludge. They ran penz! I dont really think brand is such an issue, but maintainance is. when i rode bikes(suzuki's.....yea ricers), I bought the Bellray oil @ 3.50 per quart& dumpt it every 1200- 1500 mi. Oils is cheap, those little bike engs were crankin 10,000 rpms! Bottom line is maintainance.......crazy longhorn

[mikep]

Well Texas has been at the root of all evil for years and I think we all knew that...Duh
I didnt realize quaker state had bought out penzoil. I know 20 or so years ago when we used to tear apart engines at the shop I worked at we could always tell the penzoil engines. They were the ones with an inch of black wax all over the inside of the engine Never failed too. I could ask the vehicle owners what oil they used and the answer was ALWAYS penzoil. I'm not positive that the pensylvania crude had everything to do with it. These were the days when a lot of engines were still around that had been run for years with non detergent motor oil and since penzoil was the most popular brand in those days a lot of errant blame may go to penzoil when in fact the blame goes with the lack of detergents.

mikep ( displaced Texan )

[Longhorn Man]

The advise you recieved is both good and bad IMO.
Dextron is a good clraner. It has a high level of detergents.
However, I would NEVER recomend getting an engine flush. Solvents do not ever belong IN the engine. That is a good way to add 100's of miles of wear in only a couple moments.

[RON WOODGEARD]

Putting A.T.F. fluid in the oil, is another old timers trick! My stepdad was a CADDY mechanic back in the 50's, 60's. Worked for a very large dealership in SPOKANE WASH. If you brought in a CADDY or anything else that had tappet noise, they would put a QUART of tranny fluid in it and let it run for an hour or so, drain the oil and refill with oil. 9 out of 10 times it would loosen the lifter and quiet the noise. I've in turn done it through the years and it works well.

As in everything else we do, you have to follow your own judgement,and do as you see fit.

CASTROL GTX is my oil. But I'm considering the change to synthetic.

RON

[munkjeep]

ATF is really refined motor oil, I have used ATF in several engines over the years with no ill effects. One old truck I had the oil pressure light stayed on while the motor was idleing. After running with 1 quart of ATF and a oil change later yhe oil pressure light stop coming on.

[Xzavior240]

we just put dexron in a motor this past weekend. it ran kind of noisy at first before putting it in. ( what do you expect from a motor sitting for a year?we started it ran it a couple minutes and then added the tranny fluid. of course if its full drain some so you dont over fill the thing. it quieted everything the motor lost most of its tings and other little noises. we drained it the next day and put a new filter and new oil in it. you wouldnt believe the junk that came out. I think I saw a few sticks in that stuff. it worked good but now we gotta worry about if the oil pumps gonna clog in a couple hundred miles. thank god its a ford no big loss if it does blow. as for the oil brands I used to run valvoline in motors until I took apart a v6 and found the oil crystalized on top of the lifters. i think all the oil in the motor was there. I know it was from the lifters to the intake. wasnt pretty. I use castrol GTX and it works fine.

[Jmac05]

Thanks everybody!