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B12 Piston soak, completely solved my oil burn?

Discussion in 'Gen 3 Prius Care, Maintenance & Troubleshooting' started by Higgins909, Aug 14, 2024 at 9:27 PM.

  1. Higgins909

    Higgins909 Member

    Joined:
    Apr 15, 2018
    259
    58
    2
    Location:
    Texas
    Vehicle:
    2010 Prius
    Model:
    III
    I have a 2010 Prius with 203k miles on it. I've also got oversized AT tires on it. Then I also tow a boat with it and that's were it really burns oil. It's only been about 700 miles and about 180 of that was towing the boat. As far as I can tell, I've literally lost 0 oil.

    That is significant, considering every time I take the boat out, 60 miles, I lose 0.75 to 1qt oil. I am also running 20w50 Castol GTX blend oil. This seems promising enough, to drop down weights significantly for winter. I've run 10w40 Castrol GTX blend down to 16~F but 30F I think is safer. I've got some 5w30 Blend oil that I plan to put in.

    I used almost 6 cans of Berryman's B12. I put 1 in the tank and drove it for a week, with maybe half full tank still. Then I started the soaking process. On a cold engine, I put 80ml of B12 in each piston, tried to plug it with paper towels, and then turned the engine over on the crank pully, 5 full rotations. It will probably blow some B12 out the engine.

    You repeat this process 3 more times. Basically 4 times in 24 hours, is the "goal". On the 3rd and definitely the last one, the engine started to lock up. I had to take my air compressor and a 1/8" OD tube and get down in there and blow out the piston. Then made sure it was free with the crank pully. It definitely blew a lot of crap out the hole. I tried to catch it with a paper towel.

    For good measure, you could put 40ml more in each piston and then cycle and then blow out again. It is very important to get all the fluid out of the cylinders. You can put back together. Now here is something important, all the B12 made it past the piston rings. You now have 3-4 quarts of extra fluid in your crank case. I tried to drain it out and check the dip stick, thought I was good, drove it. Turns out, the B12 is very translucent and I was very overfilled. But the B12 is kinda needed because it gets pushed out the piston holes, cleaning them and the wiper ring more.

    Maybe put 1 bottle in with a new oil change? Now you're ready to start the engine for the first time. The engine should have never been started during this process. You need to basically drive the piss out of it for 20~ minutes. I found the easiest way for me to do this, is find a 55+ mph road and ride the brakes. I basically found I could hold 55mph, on the brakes and have 3-4k rpm. The engine RPM and load is what is important.

    Hopefully doing this, you don't warp your rotors. A major key is, do not stop. If stopped, do not hold the brakes. Either Park or maybe the parking brake because it's worthless and only chance of damaging the rear rotors that way?

    After those 20 minutes of working the B12 through the hot engine, let it cool a bit, and then perform a oil change of your choice. Hopefully it has now helped your oil consumption.

    Tools:
    6 Cans of B12
    ratchet 3/8
    extensions 3/8
    spark plug socket
    10 & 12mm socket?
    Air compressor
    air gun with a 12" long 1/8" dia tube?

    A borescope can be fairly useful.

    16-18mm socket for oil plug?
    oil filter tool
    socket for oil filter tool
    1 or 2 oil filters
    1 or 2, 5 quart jugs of oil
    oil plug washer

    I think that list is fairly complete. This is the guide I tried to follow. Took me about 36hrs to complete. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG70jHiT-S0&t I would like to say I tried a BG engine restore kit and noticed no difference or minimal. Very difficult to hold the engine at RPM.