Sunday Seafoam fun! If I can do it, so can you!

Having taken a couple of weeks to get used to the knacks and quirks of buying a used car, I used the time between purchase and today to do lots of research on our new vehicle.

Since purchase I have actually undertaken a couple of small jobs already. A couple still remain which I will get around to sooner rather than later. I began by replacing the air filter, a simple enough job considering I have never actually attempted to do this before. Next up was stripping out the useless (and broken) radio the previous owner had left in it. This actually led me to uncover a whole host of issues regarding the stereo.

Wires were cut off in the wrong place, patched to the wrong wires causing one speaker (the rear left one) to blow at some point before I took ownership and mute all but one speaker. Whoever wired this stereo and speakers up had absolutely no idea what they were doing I’ll tell you that much.

I chose to buy and install a Kenwood KDC-MP142 head unit complete with remote control and front aux (perfect for plugging my iPod in to). I was tired post-working day and wanted the install out of the way quickly. Removing the radio panel and old head unit was simple enough. Even installing the head unit and the rest of the plugs was easy enough.

That is until I got to the last cable, the power ISO harness.

Behind that front panel was a complete dog’s breakfast of wires. To cap it off the harness that was wired up to the old head unit was so badly done (and the wrong size for my new Kenwood) that I didn’t want to risk it and thus had to wait until yesterday to get the entire car audio setup rewired by a professional. I’d like to take this opportunity to highly recommend Mr. Henry at Funky Tang’s in George Town, Grand Cayman. He was very quick, very professional and done an excellent job on the audio wiring.

During installation he actually discovered a whole host of problems with the wiring that I would have otherwise not discovered. Wires were cut off in the wrong place, patched to the wrong wires causing one speaker (the rear left one) to blow at some point before I took ownership and mute all but one speaker. Whoever wired this stereo and speakers up had absolutely no idea what they were doing I’ll tell you that much.

Delighted with the ability to listen to music on the daily commute, next up was something I have read so much about on the Internet. Seafoam.

Seafoam is the jewel in the DIY car maintenance crown it would seem. Every page I loaded online during my research on Seafoam raved and celebrated its brilliance. But what does it do and why use it?

Seafoam is a petroleum-based product that you add to your vehicle in order to clean dirt and sticky residue directly from your engine. The most recommended way to utilize Seafoam is by dividing the can in to thirds. One third you add directly to the engine oil. The second third you add directly to the gas tank. The final third you add either via the PCV valve or via the brake booster vacuum. I chose the latter which was a little daunting as on my first attempt the engine cut out and for a moment I thought I had wrecked my shiny new gas guzzler.

Thankfully this was not the case. Upon adding the entire can of Seafoam to the vehicle all that was left was to wait around 20 minutes or so while the Seafoam worked its magic and hope and pray the vehicle would start when I went back outside to inspect the results!

With 20 minutes gone I ventured outside with the good woman who helped me video what we hoped would be the infamous Seafoam spectacle of Chernobyl-grade plumes of white smoke emanating from the exhaust pipe of our All-American economy destroyer. Alas we did not receive the spectacle we were so hoping for, but that is actually a positive result. The less smoke you get from a Seafoam treatment, the cleaner your engine is deemed to be. Sure, we got the odd plume here and there, but thankfully we were not overcome with masses of fumes. A result really, it means our thirteen year old vehicle is in tip top shape (at least from a cleanliness point of view, let us not jinx anything here!).

I took the Explorer out for a quick, vigorous drive to help clear the remainder of the Seafoam out of the vehicle and I’ll be honest with you, this stuff really is as good as users across the Internet say it is. The effects really are immediate. I noticed the car idled differently, smoother even. The other big thing I noticed was the throttle response was far more immediate than before the treatment. A real bonus because I thought with the lack of masses of smoke I would not notice much of a difference in performance. I like to be proven wrong!

Have a look at the video on the Stuff I Wrote YouTube channel (below) which shows you first hand the results of my experimentation with Seafoam. The stuff really does work and I thoroughly recommend it!