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Decoking with water....
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trampintransit



Joined: 09 Aug 2010
Posts: 166
Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Sun Feb 08, 2015 1:01 pm    Post subject: Decoking with water.... Reply with quote

Just thought I'd post this for general consumption.

My Alvis TA14 used to run on really badly on switch off. It'd just keep chugging and turning over for anything up to twenty secondes, sometimes with nice big nasty sounding bang before running in reverse! I'd faced up to the taking the head off but thought I'd try the chemical approach. Spent a money on all sorts , including some expensive American stuff in a red and white can.....can't rememeber what it's called. It made a small improvement ...but..not good enough.

Then I read a post somewhere about water!!! The thinking was this...when you take the head off a motor that's blown a head gasket between the jacket and a cylinder, it's obvious the moment the head comes off where the leak is...it's the pot with the sparkly clean piston crown. Nicely cleaned by coolant vapourising as steam and cleaning the head / piston.

So....I took the aircleaner off, ran her up till warm...and started spraying water straight down the carb with a domestic sprayer ( old bathroom cleaner I think ) ... slowly at first...

The engine slows a little with each spray, but set the tickover high and it keeps running, there are no horrible noises and all seems well. After about twenty minutes or so, and probably TWO litres of water....switch off....and...no run on!

Never ran on again.....Intersetingly a check revealed that the valve clearences had changed, having reset them, the car ran like a dream thereafter.

So, ther ya go.....it worked for me!
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Lanchester 1953



Joined: 05 May 2016
Posts: 34

PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 9:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I have tried many things over the years but never water, I have tried brake fluid , redex of course and transmission fluid. I will try water one day now!
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47Jag



Joined: 26 Jun 2008
Posts: 1480
Location: Bothwell, Scotland

PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 10:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A guy I worked with in Toronto had previously been employed by the Toronto Transit. He said this this was a procedure they used regularly on their buses as part of their maintenance program.

Art
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Rick
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Joined: 27 Apr 2005
Posts: 22423
Location: UK

PostPosted: Tue Jun 07, 2016 10:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very interesting, has anyone else tried this (with water or otherwise)? and were the results encouraging?

RJ
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ukdave2002



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 4092
Location: South Cheshire

PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 2:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I suppose what you are actually doing is steam cleaning ?
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Peter_L



Joined: 10 Apr 2008
Posts: 2680
Location: New Brunswick. Canada.

PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 2:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Is there a possibility that the material removed from the area may find its way between the piston and cylinder walls ?

Would be an interesting before and after exercise.

I just looked up endoscope cameras with LED on Amazon. (Canada). Not very expensive has anyone tried one.
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peter scott



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 7112
Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Wed Jun 08, 2016 4:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Long ago I did try water injection but didn't think the power improvement justified the addition stuff but using it for decoke sounds interesting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_injection_%28engine%29

Peter
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roverdriver



Joined: 18 Oct 2008
Posts: 1210
Location: 100 miles from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

PostPosted: Thu Jun 09, 2016 10:34 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This sounds like a simple and effective solution to the problem with one of my cars.

Incidentally I remember in the 1950's here in Australia, that water injection units were very popular for a while and hundreds of them were sold. Many many were bought by motoring enthusiasts in the hope of improved performance. Some worked well, others not so well. I wonder where they all went?
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Lanchester 1953



Joined: 05 May 2016
Posts: 34

PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 9:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

peterwpg wrote:
Is there a possibility that the material removed from the area may find its way between the piston and cylinder walls ?

Would be an interesting before and after exercise.

I just looked up endoscope cameras with LED on Amazon. (Canada). Not very expensive has anyone tried one.
yes, "Get an Endoscope and look up an old friend!"
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Phil - Nottingham



Joined: 01 Jan 2008
Posts: 1252
Location: Nottingham

PostPosted: Sat Jun 11, 2016 10:34 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I ran a P5 with a leaky head gasket for a thousand odd miles and the spark plug rusted up overnight and needed cleaning regularly. The valves and piston crown were clean - the other 5 were not when I replaced the gasket
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Ray White



Joined: 02 Dec 2014
Posts: 6264
Location: Derby

PostPosted: Sat Jun 18, 2016 12:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just a word of caution. Water ingested into the combustion chamber is the biggest cause of bent con rods. Water, unlike fuel/air mixture will not compress so if you over do it, you could place undue strain on engine components.

Just saying... Cool
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trampintransit



Joined: 09 Aug 2010
Posts: 166
Location: Edinburgh

PostPosted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Oh ...absolutely, but I was just spraying in a mist , one pump at a time. If you think about it , the speed the engine is doing, each pump of the spray is not even entering a single cylinder, the pump action lasts about 3/4 of a second, enough time at a fast tickover for that mist to be divided up over all four pots.
It was kinda obvious whilst doing it ...I could tell how far to go...
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Kleftiwallah



Joined: 27 Oct 2016
Posts: 222
Location: North Wiltshire

PostPosted: Mon Nov 21, 2016 12:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

A very aged instructor who taught me about construction plant said that he noticed how his equally aged car ran better when the day was misty or foggy, he mounted a water spray into the inlet manifold and noticed an improvement in running and performance.

Water methanol was injected into the engines of the old Argosy's I worked on care of H.M.t.Q back in the sixties.

Cheers, Tony.
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Penman



Joined: 23 Nov 2007
Posts: 4746
Location: Swindon, Wilts.

PostPosted: Mon Nov 21, 2016 1:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi
We have had discussions about water injection before.

http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/forum/phpbb/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=35944&highlight=water+injection#35944

THis HHO thread was about hydrogen generators originally but it did migrate over to water injection as well

http://www.oldclassiccar.co.uk/forum/phpbb/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=5544&postdays=0&postorder=asc&highlight=hho&start=0
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