REDEX REPORTS

 Having read your piece about Redex treatment (Editorial, CM April 20), it reminded me of the time back in the ’70s, when me and my dad decided we’d give his Rover P6 2000 TC the Redex treatment.

After removing the spark plugs, we put the recommended amount of the red stuff into each cylinder. Then, as instructed, we spun the engine over on the starter with rags over each spark plug hole. Seeing the excess Redex on the rags we then confidently replaced the plugs and went to start the engine. It wouldn’t even turn over due to hydraulic lock! After repeating the spin and rag process a few times, still without success, my dad then got a long screwdriver with a rag on the end, and pushed it into each cylinder and soaked up what Redex was left that way. Success! This time the engine fired into life so we took it for a quick run ‘round the block’. However, the white smokescreen behind us soon obscured the block. In fact, it wouldn’t have looked out of place hiding a naval convoy at sea. Eventually it dissipated and the car ran as normal, although not much differently from before!

A mechanic who’d suggested this treatment to my father had said that you may see sparks at night coming from the exhaust as the carbon loosened up. I spent many a night looking out the back window for said sparks. Sadly I never saw any.

Nowadays I still use Redex regularly and I find it does seem to help my fuel consumption by 2-3mpg, and there’s also a wee bit more pulling power on the hills. I hasten to add that I only ever add it via the fuel tank!

Norrie Adamson

 Friends and family say I’m addicted to Redex. What a coincidence – I put it in my first car when I passed my test in 1978 – a dark green Mini van, would you believe! That was followed by many Austin Rover cars: Mini 1275 GTS x 2, Marina, Maxi, Allegro, Princess, Triumph Dolly Sprint, several V8 SD1S and also an Escort RS2000, Mexicos x 2, Vauxhall Droop Snoot Firenza...

Llike you, I put it in plug holes – plumes of smoke when I drove up the road. I put it the carb dashpots in place of a light oil you were meant to use. Today it goes in my daughter’s Audi Quattro TDI, my other daughter’s Golf GTI, my partner’s MINI Cooper convertible and my Freelander. I even use it in my Triumph

Speed Triple 1050 motorcycle to the point where everyone takes the micky on a regular basis.

Oh well, that’s my nostalgia moment over for now – glad to know I’m not the only Redex addict.

Stephen Haywood

 I used to use Redex a lot to treat sticky piston rings. In the most extreme cases compression would be so low as to cause non-starting. About 20cc of Redex in each cylinder would then temporarily seal the rings enough to start – though too much would foul the plugs before the engine could start. Further treatment by trickling 250ml into the inlet manifold with the engine running would then hydraulically free the sticking rings from their grooves.

The worst engine for sticky rings was the Ford Pinto: No. 3 cylinder in particular was often so bad as to be hardly running (because it received most of the PCV emissions). Redex treatment often gave compression increases of 50 to 100psi.

Modern oils have greatly reduced the occurrence of sticking ring syndrome, though. Don’t even think about using this treatment on a catalyst-equipped car or it’s goodbye cat.

Dave Peacock  Your Editorial in the April CM has prompted me to add a few comments, as you requested.

Having been a DIY motorist for many years, I (and many enthusiast mates) used Redex in the way you described in the many and varied cars of the ’60s that you could buy for peanuts: Ford Populars, Morris Minors, and all sorts of pre-war survivors. A friend bought a 1936 MG TA for £25 in 1962.

I continued to use Redex as a fuel additive in a 1965 Morris Minor my wife and I bought in 1972 with only 12,000 miles on the clock. Its role as our principal transport was taken over by company cars from 1977, the last of which was a 1998 VW Passat diesel estate. I bought this car from my company upon my early retirement in 2001, and have written to CM a couple of times about work I have done on it – helped greatly by your advice.

The Morris is still owned by us and in the final stages of a nutand-bolt rebuild at 216,000 miles. Neither the cylinder block nor pistons needed any major attention. Both have been re-installed as original, after stripping and measuring wear, which was within the workshop manual limits. I cannot prove how, if at all, Redex has contributed to this longevity, since the car has always had careful drivers and frequent oil changes.

Upon buying the Passat, which at the time had covered 60,000 miles, I was into the new (to me) ball game of diesels. After a visit to a diesel specialist at about 100,000 miles for an engine fault code (not injectors), his advice was to add Redex Diesel System Cleaner to the fuel, which I have done ever since. I removed the injectors at 223,000 miles and had them tested and cleaned. The testing firm pronounced that they were within specification on the spray pressure and perfectly serviceable.

The car has now covered 246,200 miles, and while the engine is definitely down on full power and not as smooth as it used to be, it doesn’t emit any black smoke, passes the MOT emissions test easily, and always starts instantly.

Again, I have no proof of how Redex has contributed to this injector longevity, or how valid quoted life spans of 100,000 miles for injectors are. The same history of careful drivers and frequent oil changes applies to the Passat.

Finally, I have some further comments to add that may have relevance to your other timely article in the same edition of

CM, on E10 petrol. I am a lifelong ‘aeromodeller’, with a sizeable collection of model aircraft glo-plug engines. As I’m sure many fellow CM readers will know, these engines are a potential corrosion nightmare, far worse than car engines, if not properly handled. Their fuel is methanol-based – an alcohol in the same family as E10 ethanol with similar water absorption properties, but with added ‘combustion improvers’ such as nitromethane, which decomposes to nitric acid, and lubricants such as castor oil, which dries out to a viscosity similar to epoxy glue! Their construction is also a factor; aluminium castings, ball-raced main bearings and tiny passages in high-precision carburettors.

If model engines are not properly inhibited after every session of use, let alone being laid-up unused for months or years, then major problems become apparent.

I have a tin (yes, a tin; not a plastic bottle) of Redex Concentrated UCL – upper cylinder lubricant – which is at least 30 years old, kept for this purpose. It’s nearly all used up, and I’ve got a query into Holts-lloyd about the suitability of their modern Petrol System Cleaner for this job, since it doesn’t have the same smell or viscosity as the old stuff, but is superficially the same colour. Neither the old nor new versions actually claim to be corrosion inhibitors, but I can vouch from long experience that the old stuff certainly is, and also that it does all the other things claimed such as dissolving gums, varnishes etc very well indeed.

In closing, I must state that I have no connection to the manufacturers of Redex.

Ken Rusby C. Eng. MIET