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Thread: Seafoam for misfire

  1. #1
    Senior Member sandydandy's Avatar
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    Seafoam for misfire

    Don't know if this belongs here or in the Garage.

    I have a nagging problem that's driving me insane. My work van, a 2005 Chevy Express, started misfiring a couple of weeks ago. Seems to happen every now and then, especially under load. My mechanic hooked it up to his scanner which revealed cylinder #8 as the culprit. What he can't pinpoint is the exact cause of the misfire. He's been going through the usual suspects: spark plugs and coils, but those didn't solve the problem. Now he suspects it's either a wiring problem or a dirty injector.

    He's taken it in his shop (which is right next door) a few times to try a few things, but is a really busy guy and doesn't appear to have time right now to change the injector. I've been bugging him virtually daily for two weeks to solve this problem for me. Apparently it's a time consuming job and I sense that he's avoiding it. Today he recommended I try Seafoam to try to clean the injector, if indeed the injector is the cause of this problem.

    Been reading about Seafoam on the web, and the general consensus is that it helps with misfires. Though some people have had negative things to say, like it fucked up their engine. I'm wondering if anybody here has tried Seafoam, and if it helped your engine in any way.

    Any help would be hot. Thanks!

  2. #2
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    I have done so, years ago - but it did seem to help. My caveat is that it was on a carburated vehicle - we did the thing where you stick a vacuum line in the can and let it suck through while it's running. While we were doing it the car ran like crap, almost dying, and was blowing serious smoke out the exhaust, but it did run substantially better after we were done. It seemed to really clean out the carb and probably some carbon in the cylinders.

    But without further research I would personally be hesitant to do it on a more modern vehicle as I'd worry about the catalytic converters.
    -Formerly Stabulator

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    Seafoam is hell on catalytics. Find another mechanic.

  4. #4
    Senior Member sandydandy's Avatar
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    Oh boy, it's that bad huh? Maybe I won't use it.

    Thanks for the advice!

  5. #5
    Senior Member sandydandy's Avatar
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    Man this misfiring shit is driving me nuts! Took took the van to another mechanic yesterday and told him to keep it until it's fixed. Hopefully by Monday. Was driving it around with 7 cylinders for more than a month, not knowing what damage I was doing to it in the process.

    I went contrary to the advice on here did try Sea Foam. My local mechanic assured me it was safe. Poured it in the gas tank and it did help. It stopped misfiring for a few days, but then restarted again. Shit.

    This first started on August 13th. My mechanic (who's my next door neighbor at work) said he would fix it. It took many pokes and prods to get him to take it in the shop and look at it. The most he did was change the sparkplugs and coils of the affected cylinder, and the one next to it. That didn't work. Then he recommended Sea Foam. He said he would change the injector but never got around to it. At this point three weeks had passed.

    Then I gave the key to my other mechanic, in the same complex, and he did not even look at it once. Kept say "yeah I'll try today", "I'm behind in my work", etc, almost every day. Like how much notice do you need? How far down in the queue am I? I gave him the key last week. So yesterday I was fed up and contacted another mechanic I knew, who is far away, and drove the van to his shop. Vibrating, shaking and sputtering all the way there. Now I'm waiting to hear back from him.

    I've had this work van since 2011, and I swear it never had any major problems outside of normal maintenance until now. I really hope this problem can be solved so I don't have to buy a new van.

  6. #6
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    I'm no mechanic and never worked on my car other than changing oil, air filters and wiper blades and brake pads...

    I remember seafoam works for my lawn mower, but like others said, you'll end up risking damaging your van's catalytic converter.

    Anyway, don't know why your mechanics are so busy..., but perhaps it's time to DIY!

    1st is to diagnose your problem. Why don't you get a OBD-II code reader. You can get the ones that connects to your phone pretty cheap. Hopefully your car has already stored info about what's wrong with it. You just need to access the info. These are the common reasons for misfires... use process of elimination to try to figure out exactly what's wrong with it... good luck?

    https://dannysengineportal.com/engin...n-the-problem/

  7. #7
    High Plains Luddite George's Avatar
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    When I was a yoot (yute?) the old guys would tell you to run a quart of diesel through a gasoline engine to clean it out. Probably not a great idea today, but back then I think the idea was the diesel would make the gas engine cough and wheeze and blow out whatever impurities were in there.

  8. #8
    Senior Member sandydandy's Avatar
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    So I’m breathing a sigh of relief today. The far away mechanic found and fixed the problem, and I picked up the van this morning. The cost was negligible too.

    The injector wire was fucked up, that was the problem. Not the injector itself, spark plugs, coils or bad fuel mixture. The wire connected to the injector was in bad shape. He said it took a while to identify the problem, as misfires can have multiple causes. Part of me suspected that it was wiring all along.

    This was an intermittent misfire. It would happen for two days, then magically cure itself for a day or two, then happen again by itself. I remember mentioning it to my other mechanic. This seemed to trigger after driving hard over train tracks or on rough roads. Even when it temporarily cured after pouring the Sea Foam, I was suspicious if it was really that or just the natural cycle of two days misfiring, two days not misfiring. Anyway, last week the intermittent stuff stopped and it was misfiring literally every day.

    Now it’s fixed and I can finally relax. The mechanic told me it was not wise or safe to drive for a long time with a misfire. I told him I’d been driving for a month with it. His eyebrows raised in astonishment.

    So glad this is over.
    Last edited by sandydandy; September 21st, 2020 at 05:46 AM.

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