My mate has a junior Suzuki quad for his two boys to play on in their yard. It’s only a 80cc four stroke and it’s restricted while the kids are still small.
Well, the eldest lad decided to refuel the quad with AdBlue and naturally it packed up. My pal drained and cleaned the fuel tank and I stripped and cleaned the carb. We got the thing running again for two more laps of the garden and then it died.
My mate took it back to the dealer who has stripped it down and told him that the piston rings have gone and the cylinder liner is damaged.
It sounds strange to me, the quad wasn’t smoking when we restarted it. The oil level is fine and the thing is restricted so the boys have hardly been revving the brains out of it.
Is there something in AdBlue that might corrode a cylinder liner or the stem seals etc? I suppose AdBlue is water based and it might make the piston & liner rusty (if enough drained through the tank)
My pals not too worried about paying for the repair it’s just that we’re both curious if AdBlue could do so much damage?
It corrodes aluminium alloys (including Suzuki pistons) and iron (including Suzuki piston rings and cylinder bores). That’s just in liquid form. When it vaporises, which it would have done in the hot engine, it turns into ammonia, which is also corrosive.
Adblue will corrode most things over time but to rot out a set of rings and cylinder wall?
How long was it in the bloody cylinder 6 months?
The main problem with adblue is crystalisation once the water evaporates (its over 80% pure water) it turns into crystals of Urea.Another problem with it is “creep”.If it gets onto wiring it crawls up the wires and attacks connector pins but doesnt attack the insulation.
Most piston rings are chrome plated and there is no way urea can attack chrome.If it gets put into a diesel tank by mistake it screws up the injectors big time but not by corroding them but by blocking the fuel galleries as the water boils off and the crystals start to form and clog up the injector.
These urea crystals bugger up folk as well as they are the thing that causes gout when it crystalises in your joints,blast this gammy leg Caruthers!
Fair points Bking, tbh I’ve never been overly impressed with Suzuki build quality.
The design is a C90 rip off made from the cheapest cast alloy, I’d say the contents of a can of pop would dissolve it.
I think Greg drained the tank the evening he found out his lad topped it up with AdBlue. I did the carb (which was fine) on the Saturday but it still would of been enough time for the AdBlue to drain into the cylinder and airbox (white crystals and a bit of fluid where in there too)
We’ll see what the damage (literally) is this evening, plenty of points to ponder though, thanks.
AdBlue or DEF as it is known here is highly corrosive, just pour a bit on to some metal and leave it for a few days and watch what happens.
Give you lad a good boot up the behind and take away his qud bike.
Silver_Surfer:
Well none of the ad blue pumps at the filling stations work properly & they’re designed to hold & dispense it so…
Thats because the stuff is so corrosive the dispensers need cleaning and flushing on a daily basis or they will seize up inside. We have our own DEF pumps at our terminals and if not flushed regularly they get stuck and blocked.
Maybe the filling station staff don’t like handling pee ?
)