My truck has had an intermittent rough idle lately. Nothing terrible - just enough to be annoying. It has about 85,000 miles on the 4.6 3V. I replaced the plugs, which were due anyway, but that didn't seem to help. I've never really been a believer in the "mechanic in a bottle" before, but on a whim I picked up a can of seafoam and ran about 1/2 a can in the gas tank. The other half of the can was inducted via the brake booster vacuum line. After letting it sit for about 10 minutes with the engine off, and then taking it out for a hard run (which it smoked like a banshee for the first couple minutes), it now runs and idles surprisingly better...and just as good as it ever has (I bought the truck new). I've heard this stuff is good from others here on the site and from friends, but having used it myself I'm now a believer.
theres a good thread on AS lately about this. A few guys say "yeah whatever" but the overwhelming majority say the same thing you are saying, that the stuff just works. I have an old poulan 3400 that i will be using as a guinea pig in the very near future. everything is good, just sat on a shelf a few years. interested to see if it will come to life!
The injectors needed cleaning, that's what the seafoam did. At only 85,000 miles your plugs didn't need changing just yet. Seafoam is good stuff, but I've never seen need to run it in my chainsaws.
While it's not a magic pill, the stuff does work when it's used appropriately. Sure doesn't hurt if someone wanted to add a bit to their regular brew either. Seems like a bunch of modern cars are sensitive to buildup in the throttle bodies. Cleaning the TB was regular maintenance on my '05 Canyon. Every 20k or so. The wife's car idles rough occasionally and that's the first thing I'm going to check.
The smoke out after sucking in the intake is pretty cool! And then I saw her face.... Now I'm a believer...
Don't know if all cars have one, but clean the IAC if your does. Clean the throttle body too. Should smooth out the idle. The Jeep TB likes to get dirty in about a year. Easy to pull and clean both, but maybe not on other vehicles.
The sea foam lubricant works wonders as well, my 93 Chevy 1500 drivers side door used to get hung up so bad on the hinge, that I would never open it the whole way, because if I did I was afraid that the noise that followed when I went to close it would surely break something onto a million pieces, a little tap on the aerosol can top spraying onto the problem hinge and a year later it still closes like it's brand new. It literally took a less than a second shot of the sea foam spray. And the very first time I closed the door afterwards it was like brand new. I nearly shipped my pants in disbelief!
Use it on out boards too. Spray it into the carb throat on my single or dual carb motors from a squirt bottle to choke it down. Then paul the plugs and squirt one in each hole hand rotate the motor. Then put like a gallon of gas in a portable tank with a full can of sea foam. And take to lake and run WOT and watch the smoke bubble up. Cleans the carbon and crud from everywhere. Do it on my older engines as well. The smoke sure is impressive. Have seen so.list results from water either being introduced via carb or throttle body on modern stuff with similar results.
The last time I used my push mower, all of a sudden it spit and sputtered for a second and died. I pumped the primer bulb about 10 times and got it started again but it was running like crap spitting and sputtering, and then just died again, it was running like timing was off or something, so I thought maybe I shared something but, if I kept pumping the primer bulb it would stay running, so I figured maybe it's the gas something crapped up in the carb , so I took off the air cleaner and got my spray seafoam and started squirting it in the carb and kept it running by pumping the bulb it started running a little better but still not right. Now the gas that was in it was only about a month old and had sta bil put in it when I bought it. Anyway I still thought it was something to do with the gas or a chunk of dirt in the carb, took the tank off dumped all the gas out and put new gas in, now it would stay running without pumping the primer bulb, but not running right, so then I went and got the pour in sea foam poured that in the gas tank two minutes later the lawnmower was running perfect, finished my mowing and I was all set. Sea foam, wrench less repair happy me oh I forgot I tried carb cleaner first and it did nothing
Carb cleaner is just a spray and does not get the jets. Just like the deep creep u used. I just put sea foam in a squirt bottle its the same as deep creep and you can get more spray for your money.
I'm glad so many others have had great experiences with Seafoam! I continue to tell "new to Seafoam" people about it, and have never heard a complaint back. I try to only use ethanol free gas in all the mowers, saws, trimmers and such. About every third trip for fuel I put some Seafoam in and haven't had any fuel related issues in over 3 years! I'm definately a believer in the stuff!
Neat thing to do. When somebody is at your place send them to town in another vehicle and then when they are gone run 1/2 a can down their brake booster and let it set. Don't tell them about it and wait till they fire their car up! Gary
When I overhaul carbs I usually run the first tank heavy on seafoam. Gets the last 10% that the carb cleaning didn't get. I run my small engines and motorcycles on non-eth dosed with stabil.
Just finished up a can on my buddies 4 wheeler than I borrow to spray fence rows. He uses it to spray and has a weed wiper he hauls around fields with it but then it sits for 10 months. It was running a little rough when I got it and the gas smelt old. So I added some non-e and seafoam to the tank, and she was idling smooth in no time. Time for another can.
I use Seafoam and have found that it works as others here has described. It is not a fix-all but does help to make things run smoother.
