Snake Oil!

I've never been a believer in any type of oil or fuel additive with the exception of ZDDP fortifiers for cam break in. Well, I just picked up a '92 Jeep Cherokee with 4.0L HO engine, 220K miles and a nasty lifter tick. I've been cruising the Jeep forums as I know I'll have to replace the lifters and searching for answers in the lines of "if the lifters are trashed, have you found that the cam was trashed too" so I could get parts ready for the upcoming top end R & R.

What I found is that many of these owners have seen that sludge is the culprit. Oil gallery cleaning is pretty much a neccesity. I bit the bullet and bought a can of "Seafoam". The name is scary as hell but some of these guy swore by it. I figured I was going to do rod bearings and a rear main seal anyway, so what the hell.

The stuff comes in a pint can so half a pint went in the crankcase on my lunch break. Drove it 5 mi back to work and didn't notice any difference but didn't figure I would. Got it home and let the engine suck up the rest through a vacuum hose, shut it off and fired it back up. The ticking was bad, worse than before but it was from 5&6 instead of 1&2. WTF? I let it burn off and what a nice pretty cloud it made too, lol!

So I drove it another day and beat on it bit, brought the revs to 3500 rpm more than a few times but no real change. I got it in this morning and it was quiet! Not all gone but far, far better than it was when I first bought it. I actually have to listen for it and I don't hear the ticking sound bouncing off the car next to me at the stoplight. I'm going to run outside, pull off a vacuum fitting on rear side of the manifold that feeds 4,5,6 and run another half a can through it and change the oil.

I'll keep you all updated.

Disclaimer: I would never, ever, ever use this stuff on a good running V-8.