Ampco Top Cylinder Lubricator

Has anyone ever used one of these (Ampco Top Cylinder Lubricator)? Do they help? I know we used to use an alcohol and water vaporizer in the 50' and 60s on V8s and it helped. This is suggested to use Marvel Mystery Oil which I have used for years as a gas additive rather than STP gas treatment.

Help with what? Save your money and buy a sandwich.
Water mist/injection/dribble does clean up the combustion chambers nicely but what "issue"
are you trying to cure?

I used to use a Lucas top end lubricant in 60's too. After reading all the damage additives like SLICK 50 do (argh teflon floating in your engine oil!) I avoid all the costly additives except for Chevron Techron FI cleaner (and I'm sure its in higher end gas already). Modern engine oils have come a long way from the loose tollerance engines and SAE30 single viscosity non-detergent products back then. By a beer instead.

Lynx:

I've used Marvel Mystery Oil over the years, especially if I was trying to un-sieze an engine that had been sitting for years, and it's a terrific penetrating oil, but I don't think I've ever heard of it being added to the gas tank as an additive (and for what purpose?) I vaguely remember them marketing it a long time ago as a "Top End Lubricant" but the only use I've seen for that was a squirt into each cylinder on boat engines or hay baler engines before they were stored for the season. Lately, even that has been supplanted by products like Evinrude "Fogger", an aerosol penetrating oil (probably Marvel in disguise) sprayed into the spark plug hole just before storage for the Winter. I've used that stuff a lot on boats, snow mobiles, etc., with good results (at least nothing ever siezed).

I also have no experience with "Top Lubers". Seen a few "Pre-Lubers" over the years, which were pressurized oil resivoirs used to bring up oil pressure just before starting the engine, but that's about it (and very few of those,too)

A decent modern oil, with proper amounts of phosphorus and zinc for adequate lubrication for your air cooled engine, will do lots more for your engine than Marvel ever will added to the gas, IMHO.

gn

Post edit: OK, so I just checked out the Ampco web site. What a lot of BS! They make it sound like if you use unleaded gas, you'll wear your valves out by having them recess into the head enough to run your valve clearance to zero (?!?!?) and burn a valve. Haven't they ever heard of adjusting the valves? If you adjust your valves every 3,000 miles, that'll never happen!!

Unleaded gas will not adversely affect your post-1974 aircooled VW engine. Nor will Marvel Mystery Oil added to your gas, or an Ampco top cylinder lubricator, help it. It won't hurt it, but it won't help it either.

Gord is right on; the leaded vs. unleaded issue really has more to do with the valve guide material than anything else. VW's have used the right guide material for use with unleaded gas since the mid to late '60's. with regards to the top cylinder lubricators I've read they were a popular item for use on 36 and 40 hp engines.

Ah, but the 40hp engines have a myriad of other problems, too; inadequate cooling (essentially the same fan as the 36 hp with slightly different air vanes, but it didn't work quite as well) and the crankshaft oil passages were slightly smaller causing many of them to weld the crank to the bearings (and often the bearings to the case), resulting in an inopportune stop at the worst possible moment. This could be easily cured by drilling out larger passages, which many of them got during overhauls, but those were the LUCKY ones.

And if either of THOSE didn't get you, then the overheating-caused-exhaust-valve-burning certainly would. All in all, the 1300 was an engine that VW would have liked to forget.

Hope you enjoy the sandwich.