Do you believe the claims made by Amsoil and Slick 50 oil treatment, or are you skeptical about some of the claimed performance improvements they espouse?
The difference is that Slick50 is claiming to do something - and what they claim to do is difficult to assess in practice which means it would be hard to go after them if you think they didnât do it.
Seafoam is claiming that their product wonât do something - i.e., damage your engine.
So if someone uses Seafoam and it wrecks the seals, at some point in its 80-odd-year history, someone would have sued the hell out of them and theyâd stop making that claim.
Kind of like if you sell peanuts, and you put a label on the bag saying âwill not cause an allergic reaction,â the first parent with an allergic kid is gonna sue the pants off of you.
I realize there is a difference between the products. Iâm just wondering why one source that has an inherent conflict of interest is considered credible while another isnât. In both cases, a company is making claims about its product.
Pouring a product made of mostly oil with solvents in it into your crankcase and leaving it there isnât likely to destroy your seals or gaskets, but I am concerned with weakening them at all.
Not all solvents dissolve everything. Vinegar is a solvent but I pour it down my throat every time I eat a salad, and my stomach is still fine. 
Gasoline is also a solvent, but it doesnât hurt the seals. Seafoam is derived from hydrocarbons, so it stands to reason that it wonât hurt the seals either, in addition to the idea that if it did hurt the seals weâd know about it by now because someone would have gotten mad and gone after them.
If you pour a solvent into your crankcase and leave it thereâŠhow is it even in contact with your seals or gaskets?Oil sits below the pan gasket.
I donât doubt that Sea-Foam could significantly improve the situation that is displayed in the pictures but before there was such a thing as Sea-Foam I took the recommendation of an experienced mechanic and used transmission fluid in similar situations. And I have scraped out valve covers filled with pasty sludge, changed the oil replacing one quart with ATF and repeated the oil change in 1,000 +/- miles and found that the shellac was being cleaned away and the lifter noise which prompted me to pull the valve covers was eliminated. Over the years ATF has successfully cleaned up quite a few gummed up engines for me.Of course the entire crankcase ventilation system must be cleaned in the process. But if I ever find myself facing another gunked up engine I will be tempted to try Sea Foam. An experienced counter man says he sells a lot of that product to several shops. I canât imagine them buying the product if it doesnât work.
We donât get our information from the people that make automotive product. We get our information from the people that SELL automotive products. I never believe a salesman unless I can personally see or confirm whatever he/she says. This applies especially to automotive products and to real estate.
Many years ago a company was selling oil filters that used toilet paper rolls as filter elements. According to their advertising people, they worked great. I could list many automotive products the advertisements of which Iâve discovered to be greatly exaggerated and some that have been downright fraudulent.
A few months back, one of the automotive magazines, I think it was Hot Rod, ordered from the internet a âcomplete, bolt-on turbocharger kitâ to fit a specific engine that theyâd chosen for the project. They enlisted the services of a respected engine lab that specialized in engineering and creating race engines. The engine was thoroughly tested, including dynamometer testing, and determined to be healthy and strong prior to the installation of the turbocharger. To make a long story short, installing the T-charger, even on an engine mounted on a test stand, ended up requiring major modifications including heating/reforming a section of the exhaust manifold, welding of a poppet valve bung, and mounting the T-charger upside down in a position that could never fit under a hood. When they finally got it installed and ran the engine on the dyno, they had to abort the test out of safety concerns when the system rapidly built pressure up to a level that if continued could, according to the engineers who did the testing, have literally blown the engine up. The conclusion of the engineers was that this kit could only be installed by those with skills like welding and machining, despite the fact that it was advertised as a bolt-on. And that running it after without a dyno stood a good chance of blowing up the engine, possibly killing someone.
You might choose to believe everything that the purveyors of aftermarket automotive products say. I feel safer not believing anything I canât verify or check against an outside third party with no vested interest in the product.
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Thanks guys for all your replies im going to run it for another month then add some sea foam and i will report back with the changes, also has anybody used TeraClean?
Hello Red Knox the transmission fluid has a higher viscosity than normal oil right? so by adding a quart of ATF to the oil you suggest to run it for 1000 miles? my mechanic has also said to run the car and do frequent oil changes and everything will clean up.
Transmission fluid is a straight 10 weight oil.
Transmission fluid is the same as motor oil. Except transmission fluid has a higher detergent content.
Tester
I presume you mean automatic transmission fluid. Why are there different transmission fluids for different cars then, if it is all 10 weight motor oil? Is the only difference the added detergents?
Simple George.
Different transmission fluids have different friction modifiers.
Tester
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Some manual transmission use ATF.
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i had all 24 lifters out of my motor to replace the headgaskets and i found a majority of the internal plungers were stuck. i took them all apart and cleaned them to where they functioned properly. my kid has an identical motor and it has a bit more lifter tap than i like. no, the lifters do not have shims. but i am not going to pull the 4 cams to remove the lifters. is this motor a good candidate for a seafoam treatment? maybe. as i am 94% confident the lifters have the same crud issues as the former motor.
right guys good news! i have an update! i have done the sludge treatment and also opened the oil drain pan, please see my findings in the attached pics and let me know what you think, after cleaning the insides and changing the oil and new filter, the car is now running silky smooth! almost like a new car!!! thank you everybody for contributing, if you have any questions please feel free to ask me, there was black carbon deposits inside the engine, this is the 2nd oil change after 600 miles, the previous owner didnât change the oil for about 2-3 years. i also asked the mechanic to clean the throttle body as the air filter was dirty as well about 2-3 years old! so the throttle body as a result was dirty as well. i dont understand why people dont maintain there cars, its simple! look after the car, and the car will look after you!!!
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please note the oil drain pan was cleaned as well, there are 2 pics 1 of it dirty and the other cleaned, but it has mixed all the pics up whilst uploading! so its not in order
Good job! Thanks for the update.
I second both comments.
We donât often hear of successful results, and weâre certainly not usually the beneficiaries of such great photos. I wish we were⊠on both counts.
A big tip of the hat to you.
Wow! Night and Day. Viva le difference! Thanks for posting the final result. Good for you for sticking with it. Best of luck.