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I've been doing some research on lead additives, valve seat recession and generally running an old Triumph engine on unleaded fuel. I've found conflicting opinions on it really. Some (Canley Classics) say that an old engine's valve seats will have hardened sufficiently over time so that unleaded can be used with no additives. Others say that running on unleaded is fine if you don't regularly exceed 3000rpm. If I did this I'd never go more than 40mph! I know I could just put some lead substitute in anyway, just to be sure, but I'd rather not have to fool around measuring out doses of stuff on every fuel stop if it wasn't necessary. The Merc had hardened valve seats from new, so I had no problems there. This Triumph 1600 engine is much older, and I don't know the history or the mileage! To be safe, I'm assuming it's on the original head and valves. Then of course there's the whole issue of which additive (if any!) are any good! There was a bottle of Carplan lead substitute stuff in the boot of the Bond which I've been putting in, and I've just found a new bottle of Wynn's 4 Star Plus in the garage. Any info / opinions / advice very welcome!
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topcat
Part of things
Posts: 289
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Well I'm sceptical about these additives. I think they're unecesary on low revving cherished classics, but on more used cars they probably provide a bit more protection. However it's pretty easy to spot valve seat recession. Really I think its a case of whether you're going to bother to prevent against something that definately will happen over a long period of time.
I don't know about triumph engines but for the a-series lead free heads are cheap, around £139 plus the dreaded VAT.
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Never used them, never driven gently, always used unleaded (since 1990) NEVER had a valve seat problem on anything yet. HTH
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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There's a rather cool 'bits of lead in a mesch bag' thing on ebay which you drop in your tank and does the job of an additive and stops your fuel going stale, apparently lasting for 100,000 miles... sounds like it might be worth a try?
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"A Pierburg carb? It would be more economical to replace it with a funnel..."
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^^ nope.. first, lead isn't soluble in petrol, secondly the "lead" in petrol was tetraethyl lead, not metallic lead.
Honestly, I decided 20 years ago to just try unleaded and see if it caused any problems to my ancient cars. I'm still waiting.
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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craig
Posted a lot
Posts: 1,029
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I paid about £100 to have hardened seats fitted in the Viva. Not got to worry about it again.
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The way I see it the only way to be 100% sure you are ok is to have hardened valve seats fitted. I've always used castrol additive in my dolomite 1500 and never had a problem. Now I'm building a new engine for it I'm fitting a triumphtune stage 3 head with hardened seats to be safe.
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77 Dolomite 1500hl
94 Mini Italian Job
06 Vw Caddy TDI, dropped on 19's
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yeah, but.... unless you already have the engine in bits for a rebuild (in which case you might as well get the seats done) its extra work for possibly no benefit. If your valve seats do recede you will get a good 5000-10000 miles notice as your clearences keep closing up (it isn't a quick process) and the cure is to fit hardened seats and new valves anyway. So my thinking is that you might as well run it as is, and only bother with hardened seats if it has a problem. Additives are (probably) a waste of money as it is really difficult to prove if they work or not.
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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sowen
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 2,245
Club RR Member Number: 24
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I ran my old 2.25 petrol in my landy regularly up and down the motorway at well over 3k revs, possibly over 4k for 50 miles each way on unleaded with no hardened valve seats for about 6000 miles before I went v8, and never had any trouble. I even had the head of to have a look to see the dreaded valve seat recession but couldn't see any, just an ever increasing bore size ;D.
It's your choice in the end whether you put an additive in or not.
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will
Posted a lot
Posts: 4,023
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I'm with SOC on this one for sure. Only ever used the bottle left by the prvious owner then never bothered after that. What will be will be.
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Just buy an old Japanese car instead...they've used unleaded for over 40 years!
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Your car is not 'epic', this thread is not 'epic'....the OCEAN is epic, the UNIVERSE is epic.... please stop misusing this word!! It would appear Hotrods are the new VWs - aint fashion funny! '69 BUICK LESABRE 350
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stevea
Part of things
Posts: 281
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I ran my Triumph Spitfire and Triumph 2000 on unleaded for quite a few thousand miles and certainly above 3000rpm for sustained periods and never noticed any valve recession with the original valve seats and valves. Like others I'd say go for it as it is.
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Lead pellets introduced into fuel tanks or lines are practically insoluble in petrol, and thus the lead content of the petrol, which results from temporary contact with the pellets is, in effect, nothing - So it won't do anything. LRP really is not that great and best avoided - decent Unleaded with a reputable addative every tank or two such as Millers VSP is much better in my opinion The reason I say to avoid LRP is that there is no British Standard governing the formulation of LRP so it can contain anything really. LRP it's effectively made from all the garbage no-one else wants to use and who knows what goes into it! All of mine always ran much, much happier on just plain unleaded, or with Millers. IIRC valve seat a recession only a real 'issue' if you're sitting at high engine speeds (such as fast motorway cruising) for extended periods of time regularly anyway
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Last Edit: Feb 9, 2010 22:13:24 GMT by Lewis
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RetroMat
Posted a lot
Column Shifting!
Posts: 3,442
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I bung a bit in my triumph when I remember, I've found using some additives the car pinks quite alot, which it doesn't do on straight 95 unleaded so have been using the Castrol ValveMaster with the Octane Booster. I don't put it in every time i fill up though.
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I play the card of better safe than sorry. I do a lot of miles in my classics and use redex lead replacement additive in both. Its 97p a bottle in tescos petrol stations and does about 4 tanks worth. For that money I will use it. If it happens anyway then it hardened valves and seats time.
my daf shouldn't need it as its an ally head and by nature should be hardened anyway, The Triumph I am told does need it as they are quite suseptable.
Paul
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bortaf
Posted a lot
Posts: 4,549
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Just to be differant (and cos it's true obv) I've killed 5 or 6 heads due to VSR, 3 2.0 pintos, a CVH, a cologne and a 1.6 pinto, all stripped and checked to make sure it was VSR and it was every time. The cologne I had go in just under 2000 miles but it was a recon engine and only had 16K on it now I use millers in it, all the 2.0 pintos were in the same well traveled transit minibus, all 3 went in under 10K each, last head was unleaded and did 40K pluss before the van died and I used it replce the 1.6 in my P100 when the seats went on that and then it did another 5 in that and now it's about to go in a Mk3 cortina on a H/C block. The strange thing is the transit was a disabled transport so I drove it like a granny but it did do lots of motorway work and the same with the cologne actually (but all round town), it had been stood for 5 years so I took it easy (and still killed the dam thing). Those in tank pellets may as well be suppositorys for all the good they do, the first 2 heads in the transit went with these in the tank and also inline snake oil
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Last Edit: Feb 9, 2010 22:29:00 GMT by bortaf
R.I.P photobucket
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B-8-D
Posted a lot
down to one car!!
Posts: 4,038
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i was discussing this with a mate the other day.. we both aggreed that it was poinless using it.. think about it.. have you ever seen valve seat recession that one can say was caused by unleaded?? the only way to know would be to run 2x identical engines the exact same milage in exactly the same conditions and check after maybe 40000 miles or so.. maybe it wastes valve in 20 thousand mile when with leaded it will last 100 thousand.. how much will lead additive cost over that time and will it be worth it..
and the best argument i have against it is......!!
"if its not broken don't fix it!"
if you do get really bad valve seat recession then whats the cure??? you replace the valves and cut head and insert hardened valve seats....
so why pay for the same job before there is any probs??? just enjoy it and laugh at the flatcap wearing mg owners paying through there nose for a additive that maynot even help when they only do 30 miles a year..
thats my 2p.. si
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Thanks for all the replies! There's a lot of misconceptions out there on the web - one site was claiming that VSR would occur on a sustained run at over 3k rpm, and describing it as though the valves would suddenly recede and your engine would catastrophically fail! Scarily it was written in quite an authoritative way too.
Judging by what most have said above, I'm not going to worry too much about it. Like you said SOC, I'll soon know if it's happening when my valve clearances keep closing up, and even then I'll have time to put money aside to do the conversion.
Seeing as I've got a bottle of this additive I might as well use it. I haven't seen LRP for sale for a good couple of years now - forecourts were phasing it out as they don't sell that much of it. I remember reading about the British Standard thing, but by that time the Benz was happily drinking unleaded.
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bortaf
Posted a lot
Posts: 4,549
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I was discussing this with a mate the other day.. we both aggreed that it was poinless using it.. think about it.. have you ever seen valve seat recession that one can say was caused by unleaded?? the only way to know would be to run 2x identical engines the exact same milage in exactly the same conditions and check after maybe 40000 miles or so.. maybe it wastes valve in 20 thousand mile when with leaded it will last 100 thousand.. how much will lead additive cost over that time and will it be worth it.. si Yes see above, same engine, same van, 4 heads over 4 years only the last unleaded head lasted more than 10K after i stoped using leaded. I got the van with 180K on it cos the council were selling it of due to being leaded and leaded petrol was being fazed out. The van did the bingo run twice a week, london to Swansea and back 4 times a year and london to Norwich and back twice a year pluss hospital visits doctors ect, only ever got used to transport somone in a wheelchair clamped in the back (hense driven like a granma) allways the same driver (me) just differant passengers all in wheelchairs Other than that all me other motors have been converted to unleaded years ago, that's the only leaded motor i've run for any millage since 2000 ish.
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R.I.P photobucket
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Maybe luck has something to do with it? I've put starship mileage on a 2.0 pinto (went in 7 cars over 8 years, then off to mongolia with TB) and had no trouble with valve seats (cams seals and headgaskets tho... ) and the chevanne has 10000 miles with me driving it like it's a white van (85,000 previous "driven by a builder" miles too) the engine is the only bit that HASN'T packed up yet! Mind you, I never had a car taken off me either, or had a copper tell me my trade insurance might be forged
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To get a standard A40 this low, you'd have to dig a hole to put it in
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