water / stream injection?

[Adam32]

I have a vehicle that I have run on vegetable oil for many years. In recent years I have noticed a large loss of power despite professionally cleaning the injectors, replacing all filters and doing a purge on diesel for extensive lengths of time etc. In all other respects the vehicle is good, correct temps with no loss of fluid etc. I think I probably have piston gumming and am investigating water / steam injection. People on other forums have given positive reports of it helping to resolve gumming problems So with this in mind, on wondered what people think is the most effective approach? Is water injection better than hot steam?

I know you can get permanent kits to install which are pretty expensive, but there are also a lot of homemade options using garden mister nozzles, wall paper steamers etc. I think I want to go for something temporary and spray to each of the 5 cylinders from the airbox. Can anyone recommend any kit? Not sure if I could split a steamer 5 ways, so I could do all 5 cylinders as the same time? I would be interested to hear peoples suggestions.

[Tony427]

Do a google search for Seafoam and it will give you some ideas of what you can aim for.

I'd start with getting some cheap thinners and running a couple of full diesel tanks with 500ml of the thinners/ gunwash added. That should clean out all the gunk from the lines/ filters/ injector lines etc.

Then I'd try using just a very, very light spray of water into the air inlet for a few minutes until you start seing quite a bit of steam coming out of the exhaust. The seafom is very dramatic but I'd sooner have three less dramatic episodes rather than one which looks like a WW"2 Destroyer laying down a smoke bank.

Cheers,

Tony

[GreenV8S]

The water will turn to steam in the cylinder any way. Just spray fine water mist from a trigger operated spray bottle or hand pumped pressurised garden spray type of bottle. You'll probably need to put a few pints through it to get a significant decoking effect, but given time this is very effective at removing carbon build-up.

[stevieturbo]

I would expect you'd need to run it for hundreds of miles actually spraying to make any difference.

Of more interest would be a compression test, or running compression test to see if there is even any concern within the cylinder in the first place.

[bmwmike]

Would water mist sprayed in the inlets of a direct injection petrol engine clean the inlets? Guessing not, perhaps a spray mist of petrol.. could it harm the maf though

[stevieturbo]

bmwmike said:

Would water mist sprayed in the inlets of a direct injection petrol engine clean the inlets? Guessing not, perhaps a spray mist of petrol.. could it harm the maf though

I highly doubt it would clean anything. Maybe if used regularly from new it may help prevent them getting so dirty in the first place....but unlikely to clean anything.

And if there is a large buildup of crap, the last thing you want is to dislodge it in a running engine and for it to go places it should never go.

[Demelitia]

Raid the local garden/aquarium centre for some tubing and a couple of pressure sprayers, one with a fine mist nozzle?
You could chop the nozzle off one sprayer, attach it to the end of a piece of hose connected to the pressure sprayer, run the hose in to the engine through an open window and down under the bonnet, attach it securely down in to the intake (test it all thoroughly out of the car first) and then take it for a drive with someone pulsing the sprayer however much you think you’ll get away with.
Hot water in the sprayer to help it vaporise maybe?
For what it’s worth, my dad has recently tried the seafoam treatment you can dunk straight in your oil after faffing around with other additives to try clean out/free off a sticky tappet on his pd130. Im usually sceptical but it does seem to have done the job after being left in there for 300 miles and then changing the oil out.
The car has done 220k now; I drive it every so often and it definitely pulls better and is much quieter, I don’t think it’s a placebo effect.