Can anyone school me on Marvel Mystery Oil and its medicinal benefits

Mapleflt wrote:Can anyone school me on Marvel Mystery Oil and its medicinal benefits

Good for roupe, croup, piles, piorrea, farts, fits and freckles

I’m covered on the freckles thanks

I believe Marvel Mystery Oil is a Turpentine based oil with red dye and a nice smelling adjuvant. To some its use as a fuel additive is relevant to witch-craft. To me, its very real as an upper cylinder lubricant and cleaner. I run a couple of older 4 cylinder Wisconsin air cooled engines in large tree sprayers. I have two choices: either I run MMO (or equivelant) in the gasoline for these two engines, or I pull the heads off during the height of my busy season (early spring) to free the stuck valves. Im using 3 oz MMO per 10 gal gas.
A lot of owners run it in their planes for the same reasons.

Ask yourself one question: Is it approved or recommended by Lycoming, Continental or the FAA as a fuel and/or oil additive in your aircraft engine?

And, just a point: I don’t think there are many Wisconsin engines powering aircraft these days.

FWIW.

MTV

mtv wrote:Ask yourself one question: Is it approved or recommended by Lycoming, Continental or the FAA as a fuel and/or oil additive in your aircraft engine?

MTV

#4 Paragraph.

https://www.j3-cub.com/attachments/sb-m ... pdf.49172/

AKJurnee wrote:

mtv wrote:Ask yourself one question: Is it approved or recommended by Lycoming, Continental or the FAA as a fuel and/or oil additive in your aircraft engine?

MTV

#4 Paragraph.

https://www.j3-cub.com/attachments/sb-m ... pdf.49172/

Need to be a member there to see that. Can you repost here?

From Wikipedia:

It is composed primarily of petroleum distillates, including mineral oil (60-100%), mineral spirits {10-30%}, tricresyl phosphate (an antiwear and extreme pressure additive in lubricants, 0.1-1.0%), ortho dichlorobenzene (a softening and removing agent for carbon-based contamination on metal surfaces, 0.1-1.0%), and para dichlorobenzene (a precursor used in the production of chemically and thermally resistant polymers, <0.1%).

Further down in the article:

In an NTSB post aircraft accident investigation published in 2003, it was reported that Marvel Mystery Oil was composed of 74 percent mineral oil, 25 percent stoddard solvent, and 1 percent lard.[3], but failed to mention any other trace chemical components.

The lubricant was used as a fuel additive in a Lycoming aircraft engine which was specifically cautioned against oil additives (Service Instruction No. 1014M, which also stated its use would void the warranty) which suffered catastrophic damage during take-off. The NTSB listed the probable cause of the accident as "The improper use of [a] fuel additive which resulted in a power loss."[3][5]

All that said, I know a lot of people, including A&P's and IA's, that use it regularly. It's common to see it sitting on the shelf at any given FBO. Given that MMO does not specify what's in their product and provides no evidence for any of their claims, you're pretty much on your own when you add it to the fuel or oil. They are under no obligation to disclose a change in recipe.

As a generality, unless you're adding it to address a specific issue and it works for that, your money would probably be better spent on changing your oil more often. But if it makes you feel better then that's fine too. Anecdotal evidence isn't conclusive, but it's not necessarily wrong, either.

#4 Paragraph

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dogpilot wrote:To illustrate how you test stuff, scientifically, I will share how we did it. I was working on a twin pack conversion for Caravans at Soloy. The program was sponsored by Pratt & Whitney, they picked up the tab and provided the engines. We put the engine/gearbox combo on a test stand and ran them for 3,600 hours at 45 gallons each per hour of jet fuel. Do the math, a lot of money was spent to get empirical data. The engines where torn down after to asses them. Not one of the snake oils ever do this. They rely, usually on testimonials. Rather like dietary supplements.

I guess this didn’t pan out? Supposedly the Air Tractor 1002 has been shelved because there isn’t a PT6 big enough to pull the airframe around, I’ve heard several people say a twin pack could be the solution, but I don’t know much about them.

AKJurnee wrote:#4 Paragraph

Yeah, a memo from 1946....and concerned about a little lead in 80/87 fuel....

Show me something that says this stuff has been tested, as dogpilot notes, and/or the engine manufactures of today's engines/fuels say it's an approved additive.

On another topic, the only oil system additive I'm aware of that has actually been tested empirically is Cam Guard, which IS an approved additive. The fellow who developed that stuff was an engineer working for Exxon, I believe when it was being tested.

MTV

mtv wrote:Yeah, a memo from 1946....and concerned about a little lead in 80/87 fuel....


MTV

Then you needed to be a bit more specific in your last post.

But I do agree that Camguard is approved and I use it with good results.

We see in AK's post that Continental suggested that it could have helped cure valve problems back when these A/C engines we are currently running were engineered. And just because the FAA doesn't approve something, doesn't mean its not good. So perhaps we should keep an open mind and give some of the many very experienced owner operators who swear by it, the benefit of the doubt.

I’m convinced it helps keep my rubber fuel tanks lubricated and flexible.
These tanks are not fun to change out, a little MMO helps keep them from drying out and splitting/cracking.

I have seen it used to help loosen up the rings and bring up the cylinder psi, also run in fuel to help prevent valve issues. If you can get away with dumping raw gas into the sump in cold weather to help with oil flow at startup I would think MMO would do little harm. 100LL has 5 times the lead that the low compression engines where designed for, the result is a lot of lead related issues. With todays litigation issues I can see why Manufactures are reluctant to approve anything good or bad.
DENNY

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Thanks for the info, sounds like it’s not as straightforward to use one as some think.

MMO has tricresyl phosphate.

http://www.marvelmysteryoil.com/media/1 ... ry-oil.pdf

The ortho isomer is deadly, with no lower limit to neurotoxicity. MMO acknowledged it has the ortho isomer.

The stuff kills people. It is really bad stuff. Its use is banned in a lot of countries except in certain applications like turbine oil and other niches (fire retardents, ironic considering known effects on fire crews) where its utility appears to be economically irresistible. The US seems to not care about these things, so I guess that's sort of a seal of approval for some folks.

Keep it away from kids if you really feel compelled to use something with dubious benefit like MMO.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 3X14001508

Or not. It's a free country. I used to use it. Wished I had not.

AKJurnee wrote:

mtv wrote:Yeah, a memo from 1946....and concerned about a little lead in 80/87 fuel....


MTV

Then you needed to be a bit more specific in your last post.

But I do agree that Camguard is approved and I use it with good results.

Interesting.....a guy using a skull and crossbones as his avatar recommending use of toxic chemicals.....just sayin, some irony there.

MTV