Sea Foam. Now I'm a believer

Kayteg1 wrote:
Seafoam is 90+% kerosene, so don't use it blindly.

That's an urban myth centred around the fact it is 90% "petroleum distillates".

It is however 50% Pale Oil which naphthenic mineral oil. Different stuff that does a different job.

JaxDad wrote:

Kayteg1 wrote:
Seafoam is 90+percent kerosene, so don't use it blindly.

That's an urban myth centred around the fact it is 90 percent "petroleum distillates".

It is however 50 percent Pale Oil which naphthenic mineral oil. Different stuff that does a different job.

It is not a myth, however, that SeaFoam is about 90 percent profit for the company that makes it.

There are much better cleaning products on the market; Berrymans B12 Chemtool and Gumout are but two. They cost about 1/3 of the inflated price of SeaFoam too.

SeaFoam was created as a marine fuel stabilizer. Coincidentally, it is a good light duty fuel system cleaner too. I think that any and all of the other claims made for it easily fall into the "snake oil" category......including removing carbon which is often best just left alone.

But if you already have a problem due to fuel system deposits, B12 will do a MUCH better job of removing them. That is not a myth.

I will give you a rule for pull start motors
When cold

1 Pull, good
2 Pulls, still good
3 Pulls and it's running still good
4 Pulls.. it needs service

When warm
1 pull Good. 2 Service

True story: When I worked as a professional ladder monkey (roofer) we had a power ladder (it carried shingles and nails up itself under power.. I'm watching some kid trying for like 30 minutes to start a lawn mower, no joy. (It finally started)

I climbed down, set a box of nails on the platform,, Flipped the shorting bar off the spark plug.. Took just two fingers,, ,Pulled the rope,, Steped on the pedal and ran the platform up the ladder to my boss.. Shorted the plug and that kid .. Well if looks could kill I'd not be typeing this.

We had just had it serviced. then the mechanic had messed up one thign, I fixed that and thus it ran perfectly....

I lader did the same for a bunch of chain saws.. but that paid better.

TakingThe5th wrote:

newman fulltimer wrote:

gbopp wrote:
Thanks for the info. I've been a believer for years.

It made a big difference in my portable generator and my snow blower.

(I'm sure someone like Newman fulltimer will ask, what's a snow blower? :M)

What's a snowblower?:h

A snowblower is someone who usually has very cold hands and knees. :B

OHHHHH. Thats why gbopp is so grouchy in the winter :B

I hear you, not sure how it's formulated and actually don't care, Seafoam just works for us. The Onan on our rig has been heavily used for 10 years under some of the most demanding situations one can encounter while RVing and it has never missed a beat in over 1K hours.

We use the cheapest, ethanol-laced gas we can find as we do with any of our gasoline powered machines, and have never had any fuel delivery or carburation issues apparently so prominent with Onans. Just use some Stabil when adding gas to the genny, and a bottle of Seafoam couple of times a year and the Onan just keeps purring along happily.

Although I have purchased a couple of fuel filters for the Onan, it still contains the factory fuel filters installed over a decade ago. Even with old stale gas, 85 or 86 octane depending on where we purchase it, has not given birth to any issues as some have indicated. Just change the oil annually and air filter every 3-4 years if that, spark plug has been replaced once although I kept the old one as there was absolutely nothing wrong with it.

I've had the same experience using Seafoam in all our gasoline powered equipment from our 2 Honda atvs that we purchased a dozen years back and have never been back to the dealer for service, to our lawnmowers, portable generators, and of course our various automobiles, some with over 150K miles and have never had fuel injector service performed. Whatever the concoction, this stuff, at least for us, has been nothing short of magic in a bottle.

Sam Spade wrote:

JaxDad wrote:

Kayteg1 wrote:
Seafoam is 90+percent kerosene, so don't use it blindly.

That's an urban myth centred around the fact it is 90 percent "petroleum distillates".

It is however 50 percent Pale Oil which naphthenic mineral oil. Different stuff that does a different job.

It is not a myth, however, that SeaFoam is about 90 percent profit for the company that makes it.

There are much better cleaning products on the market; Berrymans B12 Chemtool and Gumout are but two. They cost about 1/3 of the inflated price of SeaFoam too.

SeaFoam was created as a marine fuel stabilizer. Coincidentally, it is a good light duty fuel system cleaner too. I think that any and all of the other claims made for it easily fall into the "snake oil" category......including removing carbon which is often best just left alone.

But if you already have a problem due to fuel system deposits, B12 will do a MUCH better job of removing them. That is not a myth.

So then if price is a benchmark by which stuff is measured than a Hyundai is a far better car than a Mercedes because it's 1/3rd the price?

As for B12, read the MSDS (Berryman's B12 MSDS) and you will see that it is; 40 - 50% Toluene, 20 - 25% Acetone, and 20 - 25% Methanol.

Paint thinner and alcohol, no mystery there, and even more ridiculously over-priced for so much hardware store stuff.

So for a very balky chain saw, would you recommend running straight Sea Foam just to clean it out, and then switching back to gas dosed with Sea Foam? And if so, how long to run it on straight Sea Foam?

I am so close to donating my old Stihl chain saw to Goodwill -- it has been nothing but trouble. Many expensive visits to the service counter. So if Sea Foam will rescue it, I will try it.

By the way, I have a Honda 2000 generator -- it was also a pain in the neck. I learned to drain the carb after every use (because it is almost always in storage for a month at a time), and I add a little Sea Foam to every tank of gas. It runs just fine now and has been fine for a couple of years.

Someone said it is good for an Onan genset....Just exactly how do I get into the propane tank since my Onan runs on propane.. ;)
Sorry I could not help myself...:o

Housted

I just spent an hour watching videos about fuel additives.... I need more to do.

profdant139 wrote:
So for a very balky chain saw, would you recommend running straight Sea Foam just to clean it out, and then switching back to gas dosed with Sea Foam?

First off please bear in mind your saw is a 2 stroke, it needs the proper gas / oil blend.

Having said that, I have in the past in a similar situation drained the tank, partially refilled the tank with straight SeaFoam and using the primer pumped the carb to overfilled and then just left it to sit for a day. Later I filled the tank with proper gas / oil blend and ran that through.

It worked very well.