Carbon engine cleaning

this is an interesting topic... I hate the thought of all the dirt, varnish etc having to pass thru the injectors...presumably the carbon deposits would be burned after loosening them from the surfaces. Even tho I used Diesel Power plus in My Jack for a while im not convinced that it did much, it certainly stopped algae and water building up in the tank. So where did the water go??? was it absorbed into the fuel and converted to steam in the combustion chamber? if so does the steam cleaning work as expected or destroy the engine or merely clean it?? imponderable questions... probably simple answers...

Hi Baz,
About 5 years ago I had a HJ60 with a 2H diesel & 300,000 on the clock. Motor was puffing lots of black smoke & idleing roughly, especially when cold. Checked the compression & it was way down in one cylinder and not good in the rest.
I was told that these engines carbon up badly and was told to try a fuel additive that removed carbon. I tried it and was amazed, after about 100k the engine was running heaps better. Idle smoothed out and no longer puffed heaps of black smoke at idle. I never checked the compression afterwoods but I assume it would have significantly improved.
Only kept the vehicle for another two months and it was still running smoothly when traded, this definately helped getting a reasonable trade in price.
I own an old diesel tractor and use this additive in it every so often.
I definately recommend using it.

from Marty.

Hi Baz

I gave my previous 80 series 1HZ a carbon clean many years ago. One thing that really stuck in my mind was how smooth the engine ran afterwards, like turbine smooth.

The engine ran pretty good before (~175,000kms), so as far as power increase went, I did not notice any gains. But the smoothness, it really stuck in my mind. Some years later I replaced the injectors (~275,000kms) as they were the originals and I thought it should be done before they failed. Athough it ran really well, it never had the smoothness of the carbon clean. In fact, I reckon changing the injectors was a waste of money as far as any power/economy gains went (but it was peace of mind).

In hindsight, I would definetly go the carbon clean, but would have held back on replacing the injectors at the time. Anyway, just my experience on it.

Cheers

Captain

Hi Baz,

I'm assuming it's the Explorer with the problem, hence a petrol engine.

I just ran Nulon's Injector Cleaning concentrate through my petrol Jack. The one that says "treats 3 tankfuls". However, instead of using the contents across 2 or 3 tanks, I used it all in one hit.

It returned good results and the Jack is performing much better and runs smoother now. Have a go at that stuff, it's only about $10 at Kmart.

Nulon also has a product called Total Fuel System Cleaner which supposedly does everything and costs $20 but only treats 60Litres of fuel.