Leaded fuel,,, :-D

Halfway through double checking carb cleanliness (any more zestful & I'll be causing a worldwide zest shortage!!!) and jet-swap from the spare set. Just popping online to note down which jet sizes I'm best using in each slot of the "new" build and thought I'd share this-:

As I dismantled said spares I noticed that they seem to have been taken off their bike & stored back in the days of four star petrol (means leaded gas in UK speak).
Any of you that remember the switch to unleaded will know what I mean when I say how wonderful that stuff used to smell, pure nostalgia opening them float bowls! 8) Reminds me of my Grandad's shed when I was a kid, his lawnmower always stank the place out with it....

Also, anyone who's worked on carbs since those days will recall how much easier the residue is to clean up, on these bowls (consider they sat undrained maybe 20 years or more) every single enrichment jet is clear with just a blast of WD40 & the residue elsewhere washes right off in the same way... Gotta love the stuff huh

 

I'm not sure that is the lead so much as it was real gasoline.

Are you folks ruining your gasoline with ethanol like we do in the States?

 

YES, YES WE ARE!!! :evil: (Well, our dear, delightful politicians are anyhow) GRRRRRR!!!

But yeah, I'm not sure what it was that changed but when 4* was changed to U/L in about 88/90 ish the smell changed completely too. It's just gone downhill since then, think the first ethanol we got was a couple of years or so back as we had a spate of people here getting carbs gummed up with disintegrating tank sealer (and people with GRP tanks had their whole tanks eaten alive by the damn stuff!)

It really boils my p!ss that they adulterate our fuel with this crap, sure it may be fine in their swanky new merc's and bm's but do they care about the rest of the country, the real people with 10-15yr old cars and bikes? Nope... And while I'm on it, do you know we pay approximately $12 bucks a gallon for the privilege of this rubbish? [/RANT]

(yes, remember in future do NOT get Dan started on either Fuel, Motoring Taxes or Politics lol)

 

When the fuel was leaded weren't there smog alerts in every major city all the time? Does lead not cause brain damage?? Do you miss lead paint?

Straight gas...available everywhere...YES MISS THAT. Soft valve seats never made sense anyway. We have the technology..and had it then.

 

Oh yeah, no doubt I don't miss being poisoned, was more referring to the way the fuel smelt, it's stability when left sitting & how carburetted engines behaved on it.

Anyhow you can't talk about lead like that with your username! lol

 

Hate to burst bubbles...but......straight gas (no additives at all, lead is an additive) pre-detonates at compression ratios above 8:1. If you want to make power you have to put additives in the gasoline to increase the octane rating. I suppose we could lobby the oil companies to go back to blending in sulfur compounds like they did before 1920. That would really smell nostalgic :lol:

 

lol or we could just add our own

I guess the point of nostalgia is that it doesn't occur every day, just at unexpected moments such as opening these old carbs, can't honestly say I'd enjoy the smell every day. (Although I'm standing firm on the stability & non-gumming up properties being better, never had it so good cleaning float bowls)

 

Nope, Premium. Every day all day.

 

That doesn't guarantee ethanol free. Ethanol is also an octane booster.

 

Haha good point 750.bloke! Mercury is every bit as bad as lead, but way cooler.

I do like the smell of diesel. It's true the old fuel was never a problem for the engines like today.

Lead was an additive, agreed, but the octane boosters aren't additives in my book even though they call them that, because they are still just hydrocarbons without any other elements added in. The ethyl alcohol is water soluble so that must be considered NOT gas. I guess it's referred to as an alternative fuel-but I'd rather just fuel myself with it.

You can find Ethanol free, there is a web search tool which will identify the stations selling it in your area-usually it is the premium that they sell EtOH free.

 

I figured someone would say that, i know it can have trace amounts, i think shell premium actually says at the pump that is has ethanol in it. But its still better than buying 89.

 

Not trace amounts if they say 'it has it,' then it has it at the maximum allowed amount either 5 or 10% ethanol, 15% in a few states.

Here is the website. The word is out that Ethanol gas ruins carbs and various rubber components and gives worse not better gas mileage because it has less energy per volume. The first time I went to this map almost a year ago it showed FAR less E free stations.

Just go to the map feature and double click it to zoom into your area. BTW my 550 gets 3-4 more mpg and starts quicker without it. And just an aside unless you've upped your bikes compression ratio then it really runs better on 89-that is ideal for our bikes from sea level to about 5000'.

http://pure-gas.org/

 

actually i don't remember the last leaded gas, the 70's were kind of blurry, if ya know what i mean

 

It was all the smoke from the 60's still hanging out...

 

Hahaha love it, may keep that in my sig it's tickled a nerve that one... must be the fumes going to my head lol

Quite right too, it's for drinking NOT trying to run engines on! Stupid load of Greenwash anyway, added ethanol probably results in the same amount of petroleum spirit per-se being burned due to reduced miles/gal :roll:

As long as the prius drivers are happy huh *sigh* hate priuses (or is the plural pri-i?) not even saving carbon emissions by the time they scrap off the old car & build the new

 

Leaded gas didn't create smog directly, cars we're simply more polluting then. Unleaded was necessary in order to use catalytic converters. Leaded made it easy to have high compression. High combustion temperature/pressure made NOx. NOx plus sunlight made smog.

I remember the days before unleaded and agree the gas smelled good.

 

Leaded gas also contributed to higher rates of lead poisoning in cities that had smog problems.

 

Leaded gas also made it taste better, when you got a mouthful of it, from sucking on the siphon hose, stuck down the filler necks of the cars in the Holiday Inn parking lot, while you were saving a few bucks to buy cigarettes before taking your old man's 409 SuperSport to the Drag Strip, after dropping him off at work, and telling him you needed to go get a book out of the library.

 

Yum yum :lol: hopefully not sparking those cigs too soon afterwards, especially if "they" wore facial hair... I know of one of "them" who had a razor-free shave learning THAT lesson

 

There's a station in town that sells ethanol free gas at every octane.

Love it.

Fleet Farm kicks ass.

 

If that's Mills Fleet Farm, they have great prices on tools and supplies also.