Geza hit it on the head. I love looking at (and occasionally buying) snake
oil. I've tried just about everything just to inflict pain on myself and
my engines. ;) Actually, I have played around with snake oil in engines
that I know are about to die. On some engines, the snake oil hastened the
demise, on others, the junk extended engine's miserable life.

Now, there are some products that *do* work, like almost everything that
Bars Leaks sells. We have talked a lot on the list about how effective the
radiator stuff is, but their engine stop leak works like a champ. And here
is my story:

Someone gave us a riding lawnmower recently. Some DPO had the carb all
messed up. As folks know, small engines need (among other things) choke
and/or prime to start. It had neither. That's why it was "not running".
So, I put good fuel in the tank, put my thumb over the intake (tiny carb),
and it started right up. So, I installed the proper carb/air filter assy.
Run like a champ now.

The oil looked like ink, so I added some MMO-type stuff to clean the gunk
out before changing the oil. Bad idea, since the MMOish stuff did it's job
nicely, removed the gunk, and caused the lower seal to leak. I didn't need
to drain the oil after that, since it all leaked out, and on to our patio.
;(

Being that I wanted to keep the mower as "free" (low cost) as possible, I
didn't want to replace the lower seal. So, I dumped some Bars Leak Engine
Stop leak in, and in a day or two, it stopped leaking. ;) Hasn't leaked
since.

The Bars people should give me $$$, or at least free stuff since I've
given them such good reviews. ;)

I'll tell my tales of the "engine overhaul" pellets that JC Whitney used
to sell some time.

Jon

> I personally am a lover of all those snake oil elixirs on the FLAPS shelves,
> not for the logic but the voodoo of it. Do they work? Most of them, hell no.
> But they allow you to dream a little bit, and that's what it's all about,
> right? Otherwise, what would we be doing driving these old hippy vans anyway?
>