Blue Devil Head Gasket Treatment

Hey Beemer World. Just looking for input and help with performing a blue devil seal.
I know it's better to just replace the head gasket but money is tight and its just not in the cards right now. All input is appreciated.
THANKS

From what I have read most will advise against said fixes due to potential clogging said fix can cause. Kind of a more harm than good thing.

Originally Posted by S406

From what I have read most will advise against said fixes due to potential clogging said fix can cause. Kind of a more harm than good thing.

I did research on all the risks and figured as long as I can drive without it overheating I'm fine with that. I don't have the time to do it myself and shops will charge more then I paid for the car.

I looked into those types of seals a while back, from what I remember they have generally good reviews, but you have to follow the instructions perfectly or it can cause clogs.

But in my opinion it should only be viewed as a temporary fix. Like a donut, you don't want to ride on it for too long or it could cause worse damage than a blown tire. I have no personal experience with those types of sealers but I feel like it should just be something ( if they work at all ) to use until you have the money to replace the head gasket. If you could find other means of getting around, I'd suggest just buy the head gasket and DIY, it might take a while but it'll save you a bunch of money.

There are two types of bottle seals like these : those that have silicates and those that dont. Those that have silicates, will sediment out easily within the cooling system, and will clog up the system and have a high chance of causing other problems. You can tell what they are by the need to remove your existing coolant, flush your radiator, put this in, run the engine for 1-2 hours, flush the car again and replenish the coolant again. The non-silicates seals are straightforward...just add the bottle to your existing coolant and that's all there is to it.

The silicate free ones tend to be more expensive...could run you up to $90. The silicate sealants cost around $50.

However, recently a forum member and myself conducted an experiment with this product :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/K-SEAL-COOLI...32382e&vxp=mtr

It is definitely worth a try, it is not as good as a direct repair, but it may do enough of a good job for you to have reliable performance over the long term.

This thread could be useful to you :

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho....php?p=7173550

And btw blue devil is a silicate product, it is coolant UNfriendly, and you should not use it. Only use products which are coolant friendly.

Originally Posted by amk42092

But in my opinion it should only be viewed as a temporary fix. Like a donut, you don't want to ride on it for too long or it could cause worse damage than a blown tire. I have no personal experience with those types of sealers but I feel like it should just be something ( if they work at all ) to use until you have the money to replace the head gasket. If you could find other means of getting around, I'd suggest just buy the head gasket and DIY, it might take a while but it'll save you a bunch of money.

This perception that it causes damage is almost solely due to problems caused by coolant UNfriendly products. (For the coolant friendly products) It will either work and stay fixed, or not work and it was a waste of your money.

Originally Posted by robertobaggio20

There are two types of bottle seals like these : those that have silicates and those that dont. Those that have silicates, will sediment out easily within the cooling system, and will clog up the system and have a high chance of causing other problems. You can tell what they are by the need to remove your existing coolant, flush your radiator, put this in, run the engine for 1-2 hours, flush the car again and replenish the coolant again. The non-silicates seals are straightforward...just add the bottle to your existing coolant and that's all there is to it.

The silicate free ones tend to be more expensive...could run you up to $90. The silicate sealants cost around $50.

However, recently a forum member and myself conducted an experiment with this product :

http://www.ebay.com/itm/K-SEAL-COOLI...32382e&vxp=mtr

It is definitely worth a try, it is not as good as a direct repair, but it may do enough of a good job for you to have reliable performance over the long term.

Have you tried this product? And are the results from users good?

+1 to roberto, he knows what he's talking about. Best of luck Mikey!

Originally Posted by MikeyBabii

Have you tried this product? And are the results from users good?

We are in the process of trialing K-seal for a possible headgasket issue. It doesn't look like it made any difference, which probably means that the diagnosis that the engine problem was HG related was incorrect, but it has not caused ANY issues with the car and is still running in the radiator. It has been 10 days since the application.

We used K seal because it was cheap so the cost of experimentation was tolerable.

Steel seal is pricey...$90. Scotty Kilmer suggests that it won't work too well with BMW engines due to the higher compression of the engine (this places more stress on the fracture that is sealed), but after some cogitation, I decided that a workaround would be to idle the engine much longer (say 2 hours), and then shut down for the night, with no driving in between. That should give the product more time to bond and harden, if it was going to work anyway.

Further, Scotty had this idea on one of his videos....find the cylinder or adjacent cylinders which contain the primary HG rupture, remove the spark plugs for those two cylinders alone, and then run the engine at idle with the product in the radiator. (You can determine which cylinders are closest to the rupture by performing a compression test, the one(s) with substantially lower readings will be the one closest to the rupture or crack). The engine will run like crap but you're not driving anyway, and the chambers concerned will not be adding pressure to the crack or rupture you are trying to fix. So I'm willing to say that its worth a try using both of the methods above, but at this point, it is still a gamble if it will work.

Remember, always, use a coolant friendly product.

And of course, before you buy, call up the customer service reps of more than one company and ask them all kinds of questions to get better visibility about how it works and how it doesn't. You must invest the time in basic grunt research.

Mikey,
Just used "Irontite" in an M50, so I could drive it to the junkyard.
This product was recomended by my neighbor, who owns a Napa store.
I purchased the product at CarQuest, $12.00, and the guy behind the counter said his commercial accounts swear by it.
Of course, he said none of them would admit it.
Mechanics, you know.

When I blew the head, it would harly run.
White smoke, chocolate milk in the valve cover, the whole cha-cha.
I followed the instructions, and the damn thing ran great.
However, I still took it to the JY, as I broke even on the deal, and too much other stuff needed to be fixed.

Oh, it won't clog anything that isn't designed to be clogged.
Remember, this is the cooling system, not oil journals.
Besides, it's F'd up anyway.

Fun & games,
T

Originally Posted by haolibird

Mikey,
Just used "Irontite" in an M50, so I could drive it to the junkyard.
This product was recomended by my neighbor, who owns a Napa store.
I purchased the product at CarQuest, $12.00, and the guy behind the counter said his commercial accounts swear by it.
Of course, he said none of them would admit it.
Mechanics, you know.

When I blew the head, it would harly run.
White smoke, chocolate milk in the valve cover, the whole cha-cha.
I followed the instructions, and the damn thing ran great.
However, I still took it to the JY, as I broke even on the deal, and too much other stuff needed to be fixed.

Oh, it won't clog anything that isn't designed to be clogged.
Remember, this is the cooling system, not oil journals.
Besides, it's F'd up anyway.

Fun & games,
T

I just did the treatment smh... The car overheated at about 30 minutes into the job. I let it cool down and started the car. No smoke not sure if it still overheats ill determine that after coolant is placed back in.

The treatment was a failure Beemer world. This was the biggest disappointment. I loved my Beemer but I'm tired of the headache. Back to Chevy it is...

The problem with hg sealer is it needs so much time to transfer through the system alot of people swear by it was going to use it on a 95 marquis but ended up just trashing it wouldnt have blow but my sister took off with it before bleeding

Wicked Fast Entertainment

I still know of a successful Blue Devil treatment. In fact I saw the car in town 60 miles across the desert from where she goes to school, in the last few days. I think this is going on about a year now and thousands of miles. Pontiac Aztek, 3800 V6, tons of miles for sure. The car used to overheat every drive. Now, reportedly, it only gets hot when the temp is in triple digits with the AC on. I swear this 19 year old is driving it all over. It was sold, knowing the condition, between close families. Everybody I know is impressed.

I don't understand folks who drive azteks though, that, I do not understand

I would never own a car I valued so little that I would try such a chemical. In this case, the car was only worth the cost of the can.

Originally Posted by MikeyBabii

The treatment was a failure Beemer world. This was the biggest disappointment. I loved my Beemer but I'm tired of the headache. Back to Chevy it is...

Well Scotty Kilmer, in one of his videos, does state clearly that bottle sealers are generally effective only for the smaller leaks. Perhaps you could start a free thread on your engine's problems and we can see. It is possible of course that the problem is unrelated to anything that the sealer would have been able to fix, something else in your cooling system.

Which brand of sealer did you use ?

Originally Posted by robertobaggio20

Well Scotty Kilmer, in one of his videos, does state clearly that bottle sealers are generally effective only for the smaller leaks. Perhaps you could start a free thread on your engine's problems and we can see. It is possible of course that the problem is unrelated to anything that the sealer would have been able to fix, something else in your cooling system.

Which brand of sealer did you use ?

I used the blue devil gasket treatment. It was working until my car overheated 25 minutes into treatment. I did research and seen that bmw engines had a high satisfactory with the product. I believe that it would have worked if I would have allowed the full hour instead of 25 minutes... The smoke and fumes stopped about 15 minutes in.

Originally Posted by MikeyBabii

I used the blue devil gasket treatment. It was working until my car overheated 25 minutes into treatment. I did research and seen that bmw engines had a high satisfactory with the product. I believe that it would have worked if I would have allowed the full hour instead of 25 minutes... The smoke and fumes stopped about 15 minutes in.

Let the engine cool down and continue. In any case, blue devil is not a silicate friendly product. They cause problems....you can search on youtube for more info on this.

K-seal or steel seal would have been a better idea.

If the smoke and fumes stopped 15 minutes in, that speaks volumes. I suspect that if you had used a silicate free product, you might not have overheated later as well.

Please repeat this exercise. Before that, please ensure that your aux fan, its switch, aux fan coolant temperature sensor, and the relevant fuses are all in good shape. These are backups to your fan clutch's cooling effect.

Originally Posted by robertobaggio20

Let the engine cool down and continue. In any case, blue devil is not a silicate friendly product. They cause problems....you can search on youtube for more info on this.

K-seal or steel seal would have been a better idea.

If the smoke and fumes stopped 15 minutes in, that speaks volumes. I suspect that if you had used a silicate free product, you might not have overheated later as well.

Please repeat this exercise. Before that, please ensure that your aux fan, its switch, aux fan coolant temperature sensor, and the relevant fuses are all in good shape. These are backups to your fan clutch's cooling effect.

I will repeat the procedure again today. I'll keep you posted.

Originally Posted by MikeyBabii

I will repeat the procedure again today. I'll keep you posted.

How did it go ?

My brother just used blue devil on his volvo. It did not work after two applications and following the instrctions to the letter. Nothing beats doing it right. Replace the gasket... I am not saying it will not work for you... But do not get your hopes up.

I encountered this thread over at the E39 forums, and feel it is relevant to this discussion here :

http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=662732