Any good and is it actually bad for the engine?

 

Free gift in the post for a neighbour who didn't fancy it. 

Edited 3 June, 20233 yr by LesCM19

Actually bad for your engine, blocks piston squirters etc. don't you dare put it in a modern engine.

Jeez i though this had been dropped years ago. I remember my dad excitedly putting it into the family Ford Sierra 1.6 Pinto back in 1985 but I don't think it made a jot of difference.

 

Pinto clearances are a world apart from modern stuff so I'd be avoiding it.

I used it in my Estelle and then tbe head gasket blew. Coincidence or protest? 

It's not been the original stuff since god was a young girl and it was all fields around here and most here weren't even a glint in the eye.

 

I once put it into an L reg Ford Escort 1.3 van engine(must have been back in late 1977 or early 1978), I dropped some on the garage floor, it took ages wiping it up/off the concrete floor, it gripped like s--t to a blanket.

 

A few weeks later we went to stay at friends overnight and the winter temperature was much lower than normal, next day battery could not turn over the engine fast enough, so, bought a "next size up" - maybe Granada battery, it didn't perform much better. So abandoned it and got the train home - roads were too slippery to attempt a tow-start.

 

We returned a few days later after the temperature had come back up to normal winter temperature for that area of Scotland, it started easily, I drove it home, dropped out the oil and refilled with oil but without any daft special additives.

 

I've never been tempted to try that sort of stuff ever again, still, a useful lesson learned.

Originally at least it wasn't so much an additive as a coating, IIRC testing on the/a later version found it manly coated the oil filter.  The transmission version IIRC was more of an additive as it required renewing with oil changes.

 

I remember the original version being tested in a Sierra XR4i (original Cologne V6 2.8l version with the opera windows and biplane spoiler) by Gerard Sauer and him reporting that he wasn't getting measurably different mpg but he was getting an idle 200rpm higher than normal.

In the 1960,s in North East of Scotland @ Cordiners Garage Banff which sold Fords it was added to the oil at the first oil change at 1,000 miles or so.

Terrible crap, I used it once in the early 90's in a VW KR 16V and it blocked one of the oil squirter jets and knocked out a little end, I learned my lesson, rebuilt the engine and learned to live with the terrifying thirst, it didn't do anything for MPG anyway because what little friction there is in a running engine is mostly from the piston rings scraping up and down the bores and magic snake oil can't help with that.

I could well be wrong, often am, but I don't think Ford Sierra was about when the original version of Slick-50 was be one of the Sierra predecessor's mark of Cortina.

 

toot are you sure it was Slick-50 they used then, I can't dispute it as I was a kid then and where I lived they were very few car owners.

 

ETA: Looks like the original or a version of it is still available after a very quick Google search. - https://bishopsoriginalproducts.com/history/

 

@nta16

Well the North East coast of Scotland in the 1960,s 70,s was rather different then where young people might leave school at 15 to go on fishing boats and buy a car a new car at 16 for their friends to drive until they were 17 years old.

Youngsters from farms had cars & weekends were where the cars were driven rather quickly from one town to the next to the various town hall dances.

Many were 2 car families back then and the boats had a crew bus / minibus for taking them to the West Coast fishing.

?

Did it have a different name before the 1970,s?

 

Was it just a product as part of Pyramid Selling ?

 

Edited 8 June, 20232 yr by toot

I remember using it on a 1982 1.3 Vauxhall Chevette in the late 80's and, at the time, was convinced it helped...

 

Pretty certain I woudn't use it on a modern engine though!

55 minutes ago, toot said:

Was it just a product as part of Pyramid Selling ?

 

Thats what it is being used for now and probably why the person had it arrive unsolicited in their letter box probably with some bumph about how they could become a millionaire through (decieving) their friends who would in turn become millionaires.............................

 

If you Google it you will see that the name and company was  sold on then after that company went bust one of the marketting leeches started reselling it, there was a court case where it came out that it was just another snake oil and had nothing in common with the original formulation, probably a good thing! but the guy did not have the right to use the name, since then it has been used as a vehicle to dupe people into multi-level marketting = Pyramid selling.

 

google reveals all and will correct the errors in my recall.

Put a bottle into my Talbot Sunbeam 1.3 years ago. Didn't seem to do any harm but probably was a waste of time.

2 minutes ago, TMB said:

Put a bottle into my Talbot Sunbeam 1.3 years ago. Didn't seem to do any harm but probably was a waste of time.

 

That's the kind of agricultural engine this crap was designed for, rudimentary and with such lax tolerances that you couldn't fail but to improve efficiency.

Actually it was really designed to help terrible flat tappet pushrod V8's in the 5 litre range making about 120 BHP, the craptastic build quality of those things has to be seen to be believed!

Rather tellingly, I couldn't even give it away on Freecycle. In the bin it goes 😁

That seems a shame and a bit wasteful as it's on the shelves of places like Halfords so some people must still use it, as said better offered to those with "classic" and "vintage" engine cars especially the very agricultural British made engines by British engineering as it does no harm to them.  Perhaps a charity shop could sell it.(?)

 

 

Edited 18 June, 20232 yr by nta16

On 03/06/2023 at 17:56, sepulchrave said:

Actually bad for your engine, blocks piston squirters etc. don't you dare put it in a modern engine.

Similar comment in Fabia handbook ( from memory- not needed , might cause problems, or as in germalise " non stuffen in engine, it makes holes stuff up"). I think the days of "snake oil remedies are long past".

Du hast den Motor kaputt gemacht.