Sea Foam
I am a firm believer in seafoam. I started using it about a year ago in my daughter's 1990 Toyota Camry with 176,000 ,miles on it. I knew that she bought gas from the cheapest places she could find and kept the tank almost empty causing condensation to form. The car would die and only I could get it to start. I added sea foam mostly for the drying agent (isopropyl alcohol) and hoped it would clean the injectors and the car would run without cutting out and stranding my daughter. It turned out that it also had other problems including a clogged fuel filter, bad air flow monitor and bad pick up coil in the distributor and sticky accelerator cable which I eventually fixed.
I went to buy an old Stihl 051 that I had found on Craigslist and the saw had dirt dobber nests on it and caked sawdust and oil all over it. The muffler was wired on with baling wire and the chain although new had been used to cut nails. The seller couldn't get it to run before I showed up and when I got there he started taking the carburetor apart. He had put seafoam/gas mix in the gas tank and had pulled it over trying to start it and it evidently would not start. He had a cup of seafoam and started tearing the carburetor apart. He told me that he dipped cue tips in sea foam and used it as a carburetor cleaner and that it would dissolve the varnish in the carburetor. I painfully watched him tear the carburetor apart and after about 15 minutes I told him that I wanted it for parts and made a reduced offer. We settled on $75.00 with him putting it back together. He put it back together and cranked it and it started right up. He did not let it run but a few seconds.
I got it home and cleaned it up and put a sharp chain on it and got it started and cut an oak log. It would die out at high rpms but it ran. It was also easy to pull over so I though that it had low compression. As I was putting it up, my hand hit against the spark plug and it was loose. I tightened it a couple of turns and had already drained the tank and ran it dry so I did not start it again. The loose spark plug explained the easy cranking and the stalling at high rpms.
I have a honda lawnmower that I haven't used in a couple of years because it would surge and had very little power. I followed the directions on the sea foam can and sprayed sea foam in the carburetor and poured about a pint in the empty gas tank and cranked it but couldn't get it to start on just the sea foam sprayed in the carburetor. I sprayed a gas sea foam mixture in the carburetor and let in sit for 15 minutes to let the pure sea foam soak the carburetor. I then cranked it and cut the entire lawn without it surging while under load.
I then put it in my Troy Bilt weed eater and it idled where it would die out before. I put it in my Stihl MS 260 which would die out when I set it down and it idled perfectly a when I set it down. I have a tiller which surges when I use it with a loss of power. I will use it in it next.
I too looked up the MSDS sheet for Sea Foam
http://www.seafoamsales.com/component/option,com_rokdownloads/id,271/task,download/view,file/
and it indeed contains 40 to 60 % pale oil, 25 to 35 % naptha and 10 to 20 % isopropyl alcohol. Pale oil is a light mineral oil and isopropyl alcohol is rubbing alcohol. Naptha is however not clearly defined and is a mixture of petroleum distillates whose composition varies according to when it is extracted in the distillation process. The MSDS sheet then lists in Section 8 titled "Exposure Controls and Personal Protection" the PEL (Permissible Exposure Limit) it gives the final rule limit for V M & P Naptha. It isn't clear if the Naptha that is in Sea Foam is V M & P Naptha. V M & P Naptha is defined by USDOL at
http://www.osha.gov/SLTC/healthguidelines/vmpnaphtha/recognition.html
and as
"VM & P naphtha is refined petroleum solvent which is a colorless to light yellow, flammable and explosive liquid with an aromatic odor. VM & P naphtha is commercially available in at least three distinct compositions with varying boiling points and flash points. It contains varying amounts of saturated, aromatic, and olefinic hydrocarbons, and typically includes less than one percent benzene. An odor threshold of 0.89 part per million (ppm) parts of air has been reported."
Saturated hydrocarbons are chemicals like ethane, propane, decane etc. Aromatic hydrocarbons are chemicals that contain benzene rings such as benzene itself or toluene. Olefinic hydrocarbons are unsaturated hydrocarbons that contain double or triple bonds between the carbon atoms of which the fat in butter is an example. (I had to review my college chemistry to understand and write this.)
V M & P Naptha is not regulated by OSH and the MSDS sheet is not required to list the components of V M & P Naptha.
The probable benefits of Sea Foam are from the isopropyl alcohol which dries out the gas, the benzene and toluene and other aromatic hydrocarbons which would disolve the varnish and increase the octane in the gas causing the engine to burn cleaner. Toluene is used in brake clean spray products or it used to be used when I worked as a mechanic. I am not sure what the pale oil does.
giljack (Stihl 051 AVE (2), MS 260 (with MS 260 Pro oil pump) and 011)
