Unleaded fuel in leaded engines

["Matthew Dooher" <matthew.dooher@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

New Zealand has just gone through the change over to unleaded fuel. What a
fiasco!!!!

The oil companies individually came up with the same amount and types of
additives to put in the fuel (There was no collaboration because that would
be illegal and we all now oil companies wouldn't do anything dodgy........
MY BUTT) and it caused all sorts of problems. They started out with
literally more additives than real fuel. They could have used a proven
mixture but of course they were trying to come up with the cheapest way of
manufacturing fuel in the world. Our regulations just aren't good enough to
stop them. Older type rubber fuel hoses started to leak and split causing
quite a few engine fires. Gas station attendants started to get headaches.
Some cars just can't be tuned to run on the stuff and without the lead they
pink badly under acceleration. Chain saws and mowers are still dying by the
dozen each week with no hope of repair. (Oh no our government isn't doing
anything about it because any one of the oil companies has more in petty
cash than our annual GDP)

Aviation fuel still contains lead so why weren't they forced to change at
the same time? (I wonder if it could be that the fuel isn't good enough and
could cause an engine to be damaged or even worse stop altogether)

Sorry that's my bitch....now for some useful info

When you run a pre 1986 engine that was designed to run on leaded fuel on
the new crap it wears out the valve seats. So you have three alternatives to
wearing out your valve seats

1 Install hardened valve seats. This will work for a while but I know of
cases where the seat has intern worn out the head.
2 Use a lead substitute additive. various sources think this damages your
engine anyway. This stuff is available in New Zealand and costs about $1 per
fill
3 Use Aviation Gasoline which is still contains lead (no road tax content in
the pump price either so it's both cheap and illegal to use)



Matthew Dooher
Dunedin, New Zealand
89 164 A
Phone 	+64 3 479-7968
Fax	+64 3 479-7584
E- mail 	matthew.dooher@domain.elided
http://www.otago.ac.nz/Zoology/staff/md.html

------------------------------