Leaded Gas?

[b1rdman]

Seems like fuel is on everyone's mind with all the talk of Amsoil, ratios,and octane, so I figured why not up the ante?

Leaded Gas..

anyone?

 

[sedanman]

Lead was ADDED to gas in the old days as an anti-wear agent. Lead prolonged the life of valve seats and faces in 4 stroke engines.When lead was on its way out, gas companies had the nerve to charge MORE for unleaded. Lead would not be much of a benefit now in a 2 stroke as the modern oils do a decent job of minimizing wear.

 

[spacemule]

When lead was on its way out, gas comanies had the nerve to charge MORE for unleaded.

Sounds like when disk brakes made their debut and most service stations charged more to work on them than drum brakes. Supply and demand I suppose.

 

[Locoweed]

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari

All he could get his paws on

 

[Marco]

lead also raises the octane rating

 

[bwalker]

Leads primary use was as a octane booster. In this capacity its effectivness is unrivaled. When the lead ban went down refiners had to change their process and as a result price went up.

 

[Bob Wright]

When lead was on its way out, gas companies had the nerve to charge MORE for unleaded.

Adding lead in the old days was far cheaper than todays refining trying to raise the octane...Bob

 

[pinus]

Surely, Pb was added for the gas octane increasing. Pb lubrication is only fortunate sideeffect, and poisoning another effect.
Now, sometimes Mn based additives are used. Unfortunately they are also poisonous and are building up the white-brownish crust in the combustion chamber.

 

[Mr_Brushcutter]

I'm sure you can use leaded petrol to make 2 stroke if you want too don't know though. Although over here if you can find anywaere that sells it expect to pay about £2 a litre

Oh if you have a E-tech engine or another form of cat don't put lead petrol in or you'll break it. I doubt any of you have cats though i'm one of the only people i know who activly makes a point of getting them. Can't seem to get E-tech saws easily in the UK though, so i don't have one. The hedgecutters and brushcutters and strimmers are all E-tech.

 

[16:1mix]

The best thing to happen to the internal combustion engine is the elimination of lead (pb) to the fuel content. Filthy stuff, without it the oil in 4 cycle engines stays clean and servicable longer.

 

[Lawn Masters]

Ok, while we're on the subject of leaded fuels, is it necessary to run leaded fuels in an engine built in 1940? just want to ask.

 

[Mr.]

Ok, while we're on the subject of leaded fuels, is it necessary to run leaded fuels in an engine built in 1940? just want to ask.

A valved engine or you can replace the valve seats with hardened ones. Some were plenty hard from the factory, but none i can think of in 1940. In the old cars a valve job before 50k miles was pretty much expected.

Fred

 

[Lawn Masters]

Thats what I thought. Thank you.

 

[Patrick62]

Last summer for a experiment I obtained a gallon of 100LL AVGAS.
It's got lead in it (not much). It also has octane (plenty).
Differences? It smells like real gas. Not like the slop from gas station.
It is required just a touch of the carb screws to run well (leaner).
I don't think I got better power, but the bragging rights were awsum.
"wanna race?" "I got avgas in this thing, it runs real nice!"

-Pat

 

[b1rdman]

Thanks for all the great info. All these years I never knew lead boosted octane!

And, Pat, it does smell good doesn't it?

 

[Crofter]

The lead compounds used to build up on the valve faces and seats and tended to be a bit lumpy and cause blowby that would lead to valve burning. A lot of industrial engines had positive valve rotators in the spring seats and the wiping action as the valve contacted the seat would ensure good seating and long valve life. If you used those engines without leaded fuel the valves would grind right down into the seat and soon use up the valve clearance, widen seat lands etc. We used to switch some engines to Propane and you had to disable the rotators. At that time a lot of engines did not have the stellite seats that is so common today. For some reason the lead was hard on spark plugs and they needed gapping or changing at about 6000 miles. Not sorry to see it go. A lot of mechanics used to get elevated blood lead levels. Brakes and clutches were all asbestos then too and it was common to blow everything out all over the shop with the air hose.............pardon me, I was having a flashback!

 

[bwalker]

I obtained a gallon of 100LL AVGAS.
It's got lead in it (not much). It also has octane (plenty).

Actually 100LL has a pretty high lead content of 2 grams per gallon and a moderate octane level of 93.5. Its called 100 Low Lead because the product it replaced (100/130 av gas) had a even higher lead content of around 4 grams per gallon.
In the good ol days gasoline was allowed to have up to 4.2 grams of PB per gallon, but the average was about 2.4.

 

[bvaught]

Actually 100LL has a pretty high lead content of 2 grams per gallon and a moderate octane level of 93.5. Its called 100 Low Lead because the product it replaced (100/130 av gas) had a even higher lead content of around 4 grams per gallon.
In the good ol days gasoline was allowed to have up to 4.2 grams of PB per gallon, but the average was about 2.4.

Uh Oh Ben.... Where do you get that 100LL has an octane level of 93.5? Are you reffering to Research Octane Number or Motor Octane Number or an average of the two. In any event every publication I have ever seen on 100LL Avgas shows much higher than 93.5.

 

[bwalker]

Are you reffering to Research Octane Number or Motor Octane Number or an average of the two.

I was using the R+M/2 method which is the most comonly used rating that most are familure with. In other words this is the rating used on the pumps at your local filling station.

 

[andrethegiant70]

I'm with 16:1MIX, you REALLY don't want to breathe that stuff. Lead? Good riddance.