it's not an urban legend

[Tessie McMillan]

I just wanted to pass this along. I had asked if any of you had ever heard
of using ATF to clean a dirty engine prior to an oil change. Most of you
said "DON'T DO IT, TESS!", or "ONLY DO IT TO AN ALFA!!"  I couldn't help
myself and decided to give it a try.

First I drove around for a while to heat up the oil, then drained the oil
but left the old filter (NOT a FRAM) in. I then added a mixture of ATF and
Redline and drove around for a while. Wow I wanted to leave that stuff in
there, the engine sounded so good. After about 20 minutes, drained that
out of the engine, and because it looked so incredibly sludgy, I poured a
little Mobil 1 in and started the engine again, then drained all that out
again. It was nice and clean this time. I removed the filter. I
replaced with my Mobil 1 synthetic and a new filter (NOT a FRAM) and the
engine ran like a champ! This is my '88 80Q with about 130k miles on it.

There you have it, not an urban legend. And when I described the
technique to my Alfa buddies they said it was a well-known method.
HA! Whoever told me to do it to my Alfa was a sneaky devil.

Tess