Well not sure thats Homeopathy as it nothing is diluted to where the âactive ingredientâ is not there anymore. There is actual ingredient in those cans. Now whether those ingredients actually do anything thatâs another thing.
Homeopathy and the art of motorcycle maintenance: fix a flat by puncturing your tire with an extremely small needle, increase the integrity of your helmet by using an ever-so-slightly abrasive sandpaper, brake just a tiny bit to increase speed.
I can make these all day.
I like to grind sand between two machined steel plates and then take 5mg of the residue from that to add to the engine oil. Itâs like re-bedding the bearings!
Never used any injector cleaner in my old /6, but it stands to reason that your BG 44K solvent would help things given the age of the bike and the likelihood that all sorts of dirty gas has been run through those injectors. And IIRC, the BMW /2âs, /5âs and such didnât come with an inline fuel filter, which would (eventually) necessitate cleaning the injectors anyway.
And if I might add a gripe to that: Why the hell BMW put the fuel filter inside the tank on the newer bikes is beyond me (and of course they did it that wayâitâs why they charge $75+/hr for BMW m/c shop maintenance).
keep us posted on how it affects âsoftâ bits like fuel line.
the ⌠felt it surge and run better - was definitely goop clearing out of the jets and passagewaysâŚ
cool.
Remember to top off your blinker fluid while youâre at it, too!
All jokes aside, what the hell does this have to do with Homeopathy?
I figured from the title that the article was going to be about some quack insta-fix that was really just a can of water.
Unless Iâm missing the joke Iâm amazed this got posted considering BoingBoingâs longstanding animosity towards homeopathy.
http://boingboing.net/tag/homeopathy
seems well proven on youtube
Peer review standards are really slippingâŚ
I bought new braided fuel line and some t-connectors just in case.
Jason, Iâm guessing you have an old airhead. I wonder if this stuff corrodes little rubber o-rings and such. Because that would cause some problems!!
How is this Homeopathy? This is just off-label use - the foundation of modern mainstream medicine!
And just like antipsychotics for dementia patients, I wonder about whether the short term effects are worth the downstream consequences.
You are guessing right.
I am going to assume that this stuff is unlikely to cause much damage to the rubber bits that already stand up to gasoline. While not gasoline, it is just an increased dose of the same additive and detergents that are already in your gasoline. I suspect it is harmless but Iâve bought an extra run of fuel line incase the most obviously exposed to the rawest liquid rubber bits want to go.
I know this is just a fun post about motorcycles, but I have to agree that using fuel injector cleaner in your carbureted bike is in no way analogous to homeopathy.
Homeopathy is a pre-scientific, vitalistic philosophy of medicine from the 1790s consisting of two parts:
-
Law of Similars
That which causes symptoms in a healthy person will cure them in a sick person. So, if someone is nauseous and throwing up, give them Syrup of Ipecac (yes, really, thatâs homeopathy). -
Law of Infinitesimals
The more you dilute a substance the more powerful its medicinal effect. (The inventor tacked this one on at a later date - probably because it became kind of obvious after a while that giving things like full strength Syrup of Ipecac to nauseous people wasnât helping their nausea⌠:-0 ) Many homeopathic remedies are so diluted that they contain zero molecules of the âactiveâ ingredient.
Soooo, to be homeopathic, youâd need to take something that gums up engines, such as sugar, then use serial dilutions of 1 to 100 (with thorough shaking) in water about 30 times, leaving you with nothing but water. Then put a drop of that water in your engine, and voila! Homeopathy magic. Or not.
If youâd like to know more about it, there are actual homeopathy textbooks, from the time when it was one of the most advanced forms of medicine, available on Project Gutenberg.
I agree that itâs probably harmless. In my experience, though you wouldnât want to get any on your paint, fuel injector cleaner and carb cleaner do essentially the same thing. The only vehicle I ever bought new was my 1994 Toyota pickup. Its second smog test was in 1999, and it didnât quite pass at first. Little bit high on the HC, seemed to be running a tad rich, the tech recommended cleaning the fuel injectors and offered to do it. I said no thanks, and dumped in a $4 jug of STP fuel injector cleaner, and one tankful of gas later I passed the smog test with flying colors. Ever since then Iâve dropped in a jug of that stuff in all of my cars more-or-less annually, and never had to dismantle or clean any injectors. Right now, that same Toyota is tootling around Alaska with over 200,000 miles on it⌠still never having taken the injectors off or done anything other than run decent gas through them and given them the STP bath every year or so.
[quote=âSkeptic, post:13, topic:54053â]Soooo, to be homeopathic, youâd need to take something that gums up engines, such as sugar[/quote]Snopes suggests that putting sugar in oneâs gas tank really isnât as terrible as it is rumored to be, to build further on the theme.
Thatâs actually perfect. Lots of homeopathic âactiveâ ingredients donât really produce the symptoms in healthy people they are purported to. The symptoms are subjective, self-reported claims by a single person doing a homeopathic âprovingâ and really, really looking for âsymptoms,â much as a hypochondriac does - just one of many areas where human bias mucks up homeopathy. Homeopathy is essentially a type of sympathetic magic, not an actual, viable system of medicine.
Depends. Even the alcohols added to the fuel can change the ways how the fuel interacts with plastics. To be on the safe side, Iâd suggest switching to Viton o-rings.
(But then, I am in love with fluoropolymers.)
Check the compatibility of Viton here:
http://www.fbs-online.com/Centre/Prod/Viton-chem-com-res.htm
And cross-reference it to the chemicals found in the magic cleaner, which should be listed or at least hinted in its MSDS. (MSDSs are wonderful! Even if way too often they contain less information than they should. Still, itâs often more than nothing and sometimes even enough.)
A decent ad-hoc test is also a bit of the fluid (here, a mixture of fuel and that cleaner) and samples of the materials (a piece of fuel line, an o-ringâŚ) together in a glass bottle for a couple days to maybe even a few weeks, preferably in a warm place. Then check for dissolution, softening, swellingâŚ
Homeopathy is a proxy for love.
You might try a 600:1 mix of TC-W3 two-stroke oil in your fuel to help prevent future problems.
TC-W3 is a water-cooled outboard motor certification for two-stroke oils and oils matching that certification are readily available (think wally-world, Canadian Tire, etc.).
Youâll see the use of TC-W3 to alleviate some engine issues has quite the following if you do some internet searching. Claims of fuel system cleaning, reduction of issues caused by ethanol in fuel, fuel stabilization effects, and more are claimed. Iâve tried it and not seen any of the claimed improvements (smoother running/idling, less fuel consumption, less oil consumption) but also not had any problems starting carbed equipment after a summer or winter of storage (snow-blower and lawn mower). Intuitively it does make sense that a carburettor float bowl with some oil in the fuel is going to resist corrosion better than one where fuel evaporates leaving behind moisture but thereâs no hard proof, only a lot of internet opinion. Itâs a few bucks to buy a litre of TC-W3 certified two-stroke so probably worth a try.
