How about alchemists? Okay, in order not to hi-jack the "Wiped Cam" thread... I would like to see if anyone has answers to the zinc discussion in this thread. How fast will a pure zinc slug dissolve inside an engine, exposed only to return oil, heat, and vibration? How fast when installed in the oil filter and erroded by fast moving hot oil? I know it won't dissolve too fast to do damage, but would it dissolve fast enough to provide the oil with a steady stream of zinc in quantities to do any good and linger in the engine? Make sense? The thought is zinc additives are expensive, and solid zinc is used in a great many applications as a 'sacrificial' metal to prevent corrosion... so why not keep a zinc slug (de-plated cent) in the oil filter? From one oil change to the next, the zinc won't drain totally out of the engine with the oil, and the new filter could just be seeded with another sacrificial slug, cost one cent... Ideas? Thoughts? This is along the same lines as keeping a magnet on your oil filter (which I do) or using transmission fluid in your engine in some form to keep it clean. A home remedy.
I am not an expert in chemistry, but I have done a couple experiments... In them, i have found that zinc needs an acid to disolve. Motor oil isn't very acidic, but I am hearing that it becomes so after miles and time of use. So, on old oil, it may dissolve, but in a typical engine, I doubt it. The old saying "like dissolves like" would mean that zinc (a metallic mineral) would most likely not dissolve in a mineral oil. But if you can dissolve it in an acidic solution first, you may be onto something. But then the acidic zinc may not neutralize enough to not be damaging to the metal components in the engine. So, I would stick with the comp cams additive.
Not saying you are wrong... Just thinking aloud. (of sorts ) One use for zinc is in coffins. A bar of solid zinc is built into the bottom, under the coffin's final user... It is there to dissolve as the metal in the coffin is exposed to the elements. It actually keeps all the metal on the coffin from corroding by sucking that corrosion through the metals, like electrical current. I am not versed enough to explain it any other way. The zinc on the bottom will actually keep a metal lid, all the way on the other side of the container, from rusting. Amazing stuff! So I am trying to figure out how that helps/hinders us. At the very least, sacrifical zinc could keep your engine from corroding... right? In theory, the water passages might even benefit. ??? Still waiting for the scientists!
Another point of discussion: When I say "dissolve", I am not necessarily suggesting it would literally disolve like sugar in water. More like errode, like a mountain stream errodes rock as it moves over. That was the idea behind putting it in the oil filter, exposing it to maximum errosion current, pressure, and heat. Just some thoughts. This may just be a dead end. ???
Sounds like it might do well in the gas tank... ??? The oil gets exposed to the fuel in small amounts. Fuel is the major contaminant in oil that causes the need for changing. If fuel didn't get into the engine oil, and we all used synthetic, we would never change oil. So, if gasoline is quicker to disolve zinc, and it gets in the oil, in the usual amounts, could it transfer something like 100 ppm to the oil continously? I know, that is reaching...
My car will sound like a marracca I guess... Pennies in the gas tank, oil filter, and oil pan... Maybe I'll throw some in the radiator and tranny for good measure! I'll hit a bump and it'll sound like a kid's piggy-bank!
How do we find out if tranny fluid kept it's zinc? It might be a feature in ATF that cannot be removed. ??? If so, ATF is nothing more than motor oil with double the detergents and red dye. I know people that run it (mixed with regular oil) in the engines all the time to keep them clean. Wouldn't it be simple if ATF still has zinc? Just throw in a quart of ATF in place of one quart of oil with each change, and call it done.
The heavy metals, copper,zinc and lead, have been removed from all "over-the-road" oils in the USA. The oils that still have it are for off-road use or as a break-in oil only. Zinc, as an additive has to be disolved in hydrochloric acid, washed to remove the acid, rinsed to clean the salts, dehydrated and then disolved in the oil under very specific pressures and temperatures in a refining tower. This is not something you can duplicate. Dropping pennies into your engine the pennies will sit there for hundreds of years without disolving. The acids produced during combustion will never reach the level of strength needed to disolve pennies in your oil, water or transmission.
How does the 60 pound block of zinc under a coffin dissolve without hydrocloric acid? There is something missing.
What you are talking about is using zinc as a sacrificial annode. It isn't a chemical reaction as much as an electrical one. We use them on boat engines the same way, or steel boat hulls. When you put two different metals together, depending on what they are, they may start an electrical current. And as electricity is drawn from the metals, they oxidize, and "rust" away. It is better that the zinc "rust" away, or decompose, instead of the metal that it is applied to, in order to lengthen the life of the host metal. So in the coffin, the zinc will rust for hundreds of years, and when it finally becomes a big block of white crusty zinc oxide, it will no longer protect the coffin and then the coffin will start to rust away. In my 2-stroke jet engines, Seadoo uses stainless steel head bolts to bind together aluminum heads and crankcase (and carb to intake, etc.). The bolts don't rust away over time, but they do cause this electrical current which dissolves some of the aluminum, causing aluminum oxide to "weld" the aluminum parts to the stainless bolts. Cannot be separated without destroying the aluminum parts, if you let it go to long. So, here you can see that this electrical reaction is not always intended and is often damaging to the materials around it.
So, dropping a chunk of zinc into your gas tank will likely do absolutely nothing, unless there is some reaction that is occurring between your fuel and tank, and this same reaction can occur more easily between the tank and zinc, or the fuel and zinc, and this would slow down decomposition of your fuel or tank, or whichever is originally being damaged. I don't think that this is occurring in our tanks, so zinc would not work here. Besides, it wouldn't be "zinc" floating in your gas, but zinc oxide. And I am not sure if that is good for the purposes you are trying to use it for. Again, I am not a chemist or electrical engineer, so my facts may be a little off, but you get the gist.
Bolting solid zinc to the inside of an engine will do absolutly nothing. It works in seawater, but so does aluminum. And you've got lots of aluminum on/in your engine
Zinc sacrifice anodes rely on moisture or water to complete the circuit. They work on a coffin due to the moisture in the soil.
This made me think of the pellets that were reccomended to drop ito a radiator on a Cadillac Northstar engine. They pellets are reccomended to use to prevent corrosion on the Aluminum engine that had different kind of metals bolted into it. Wonder what those pellets were made out of and if you could just use some of those in your colling system to get the effect yo uare looking for.
Some interesting ideas here! Maybe you can put a zinc sacrificial block under your car to stop the rusting process? Nah,that would just be too easy!
