I'm sure this has topic has been discussed before, but I was unable to locate it. Can I safely use unleaded gas in my XPAG, or should I use a lead additive in my gas? I don't have any history on my engine, but I don't believe it has ever been rebuilt with hardened valve seats.

Unleaded fuel in an engine without hardened seats is a non issue unless you plan on racing the car. We drive our TD on a daily basis year around and have since 1974. I never bothered to put hardened seats in the head, instead waiting for the existing seats to show significant recession - still waiting. The same thing applies to our 66 MGB, also a daily driver - no recession experienced on the head in it either. Ask you machinist when he/she works the head if it needs the new valve seats, if it does, then go ahead and put the hardened one in.
Cheers,

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Dave DuBois
1953 MGTD
1966 MGB
http://homepages.donobi.net/sufuelpumps/

How much lead do you think there was in fuel in the 1930s when this engine was designed?

As Dave said, it's not an issue.

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Member of The International Society of Luddites (Unrepentant Chapter).

Take the time to understand what a part does and how it does it, then you'll have a better understanding of how to fix it when it goes wrong. Beats the scattergun approach every time.

Ignition testing made easy.

Making your MGB handbrake work

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Life with an MG TA and an MGB GT in the UK.

Lead was used as an automotive fuel additive in the 1920's, so the XPAG may have been designed for leaded fuel. Period photos show gas pumps labeled as "Ethyl" which indicated tetraethyl lead as an anti-knock additive. Nonetheless, I'm very pleased to know it isn't necessary to modify today's fuel. Thanks for the info.

Here's an interesting period image.

Irregardless of what the old ads say and what we have experienced today, we know E-10 will eat old compound rubber parts and the elimination of "lead" is not a time bomb for old soft valve seat engines. The so called lead additives are snake oil in my book! Just another way to get at your money! Remember "Motor Medic" and all the others, claiming to rebuild your oil burning and noisy engine by dumping in a quart of the stuff. What a joke! JMHO. PJ

That leads to another question...what rubber parts in the TD are subject to deterioration from ethanol fuels?

please leave the lead on the shelf...it was introduced in 1923/4 ..they even knew better then...

"As early as 1924, lead was such an obvious and well-known poison that public health experts reacted with alarm when General Motors and Standard Oil announced plans to add it to Alice Hamiltongasoline.

For example, Alice Hamilton, an MD and head of the Harvard public health program, told GM research chief he was "nothing but a murderer" for insisting that only leaded gasoline could boost octane and raise compression ratios. In fact, it was well known that there were plenty of useful and affordable alternatives."

and it only took us 90 years to get rid of it. i agree with paul..closest thing to snake oil in our modern world. regards, tom



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2012 10:43PM by tigermoth.

It's amazing to me that with so many people, especially old car people, upset about alcohol-laced gas, there isn't a movement opposing all of the lobbying the ethanol industry is doing in Washington.
JohnD

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johnsfolly motorsports
www.johnsfolly.webs.com

with a dependence on foreign oil to the point of it being a national security issue...what little trouble this has caused me for the last 20 years seems small in comparison to the benefit for the nation as a whole to have our own, renewable energy source. i'm not saying the current economics of ethanol is the final solution, but the first car henry produced was not a viable technology either..if they would have scrapped the whole concept because it did not make sense economically at the time, we would not have these lovely cars in our garages. i believe this is a developing technology.
...but that is just my opinion. regards, tom

Leaded fuel is not snake oil and it no less than saved the world in WWII. The British designers of the Rolls Royce Merlin were assured by their American allies that extremely high octane fuel WOULD be available, and the Merlin engine was designed based on that assumption. As a result, it was far more compact and had a greater power to weight ratio than any engine of equivalent power that the Germans had available to them. These engines (and leaded fuel) went on to power nearly every fighter and bomber aircraft that the British employed during the war, and were a crucial factor in the RAF's victory in the Battle of Britain. That prevented the Germans from invading England, which in turn kept it available as a base of operations that made the liberation of Europe possible.

So before you condemn tetraethyl lead as being unnecessary and a snake oil, take a moment to ponder the fact that were it not for the development and use of that substance, it's more than likely none of us would have MGs to drive in the first place. Which would be among the lesser ways in which the world would be far worse.

Del, really: Lead was bad. It was put in because it was the cheapest thing to use--it was waste. Making higher octane fuel--then and now--is a process that requires one of two things.

1. More and more careful refining, which gives you as good an octane as you want, but a bit less of it than the crappier stuff, or.

2. monkeying around with additives. tetra-ethyl lead was, in the 20s, a known poison but the easiest and cheapest thing to use to turn pisswater "gas" into something that would actually burn. It wasn't done to win any war--WWII was decades away. It was the 1920s. It was actually done to kill the burgeoning ethanol-as-fuel movement then. Here's a detailed history of the lead scam.

Ethanol is a similar thing, except it's not cheap--it's more expensive than the gas it replaces. It only seems cheaper because the U.S. taxpayers subsidize corn to the tune of $5 billion a year.

thanks for the note ed. no need to get off on a tangent with inaccurate historical data...just the facts. i like it. regards, tom

I'll pick up on where Del dropped off. Lead is the only additive that leaves a residue on valve faces and seats and provides upper valve train (valve stems and guides) lubrication. That good sirs is fact, not speculation, snake oil, political. Doubt me and read the report the EPA issued when its first study was complete and the process to ban tetraethyl lead began. In that study the EPA admitted NOTHING can replace the lubricating quality of tetraethyl lead in an internal combustion engine. That was one of the reasons gasoline manufactures used it dating back to the 1920s. The fact it helped control detonation, or better control predetonation was a plus at the time that became an imperative when higher compression engines were being made and mandatory as Del points out, when ultra high compression war engines were needed to combat the emerging threat, of factories, air planes, and an enemy launching ballistic missiles while developing nuclear bombs.

Mr. DuBois's tenor should serve as gospel for anyone with an older LBC. The British car industry supplied vehicles to its empire around the world. They had to run on fuel or what passed for fuel from the Cape of Good Hope to Gibraltar, and New Delhi to Brisbane...in other words the XPAG, and series A and later B engines were tough cookies at many levels.

As far as DIY additives, "lead substitutes" are almost universally from the "zene" family, benzene, xylene, toluene...they are nothing but octane enhancers, expensive ones at that, and do not do what tetraethyl lead was first charged to do, provide upper valve train lubrication. If you think lead is a killer, read up on the zenes...even their fumes can kill.

Iodine is also a poisonous heavy medal. As is mercury, aluminum, tin, zinc, copper and iron. All heavy metals are poisonous. Isn't it a wonder that the the cut and scrape remedy for hundreds of years was tincture of Iodine later aided and abetted by Mecuricome. Its a miracle that Dave and I are alive today!

The demonization of Tetraethyl lead was actually part of the ground work to put a halt to hydrocarbon emissions. The best but somewhat fragile platinum and palladium used as a catalyst to do that job simply could not withstand dealing with another heavy metal. Long before Algore and the Greeners were carping their agendas, hydro carbon emissions was on the radar of both health and environmental qualified experts.

Truth be known, TEL was never outlawed per se. The way the bureaucrats skirted the issue was to make it illegal for refineries to put it in the blend and allow it to be pumped at gas stations. I can buy tanker loads of it today in the US. I also use it in proportion in all my old American engines that were not built to the standards of British automobile engines.

As far as using good whiskey base to power engines, alcohol is only outpaced by water as a universal solvent. Its properties are like chemical scrubbers, scrubbing at any and everything they come in contact...be it rust in the fuel tank and hard lines or the hydrocarbons in the rubber/neoprene of fuel lines and diaphragms in the fuel system. If you drive an old car that has those in its system, you are warned of the eventual decay alcohol will cause.

edit for spelling

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Regards,
Robert Kirk
kirkbrit@yahoo.com
563 323 1017
Moss distributor UK importer
Beat or match any retail/delivered quote



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2012 01:16PM by kirks-auto.

the idea of valve face lubrication was created after lead was added as an anti-knock compound. leave the lead on the shelves. no issues with older engine valve recession..wives tale that was debunked years ago by many reputable trade publications and it is leathal. regards, tom

Thomas,
If true, it would fly in the face of the EPA papers which I have personally read. Mine is not a ministry to convert, but truth will out.

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Regards,
Robert Kirk
kirkbrit@yahoo.com
563 323 1017
Moss distributor UK importer
Beat or match any retail/delivered quote

not even sure what that means. if your sources existed you could post the link.

The agency is the Environmental Protection Agency and I assure you they exist. The paper was issued 40 or so years ago when after market TEL additive was still easily available. Not to seem cheeky but I have not copied for reference all the reference I have read in my life. I don't make up facts, but am still mostly capable or recalling same.

It is not my purpose to convert those that think in some direction. All heavy metals pose possible health risks. Some heavy medals in controlled quantities are actually curative, for the very reason they pose health risks if taken in abundance. We can go on about what the real reason TEL was added to gasoline, octane booster vs lubrication but the fact is it did both and in its absence, OEM car and aftermarket parts makers began offering different material for valve guides and seat faces and eventually flat tappet engines altogether. Zinc and phosphate are also lethal if ingested but you can be sure in a flat tappet engine of the period they too are mighty important to do for tappets and cam lobes what zinc does/did for valves.

That's all I have to add to this thread. I sense hostility and that is not at all what I intended.

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Regards,
Robert Kirk
kirkbrit@yahoo.com
563 323 1017
Moss distributor UK importer
Beat or match any retail/delivered quote



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2012 01:18PM by kirks-auto.

Except your facts are not. Your supposed detailed history is hosted at a left-wing advocacy website. I never said anything about mixing lead into crappy gas. You can have the best, most carefully refined gas possible and you can only push it so far in terms of octane and detonation resistance in a high compression engine. Adding tetraethyl lead to gas that was already good did in fact provide the RAF an advantage over the Luftwaffe at that critical stage of the war. Here are a couple of articles that mention how high octane fuel from the US became available when it was needed, and explain the advantage provided by the additional boost that it made possible:

http://www.airforce-magazine.com/MagazineArchive/Pages/2008/August%202008/0808battle.aspx

http://www.spitfireperformance.com/spit1vrs109e.html

It certainly wasn't the only crucial factor, but since the battle was a very close thing in the first place, that leaded fuel is one of the factors that tipped the balance in Britain's favor, which puts the lie to your assertion that adding lead to fuel was a snake oil.

Whether or not it is necessary today is another question. On those occasions when I have needed to dispose of leaded avgas drained from aircraft undergoing maintenance, I ran it in my older vehicles, and they did run noticeably better than on this crap that is called gasoline today. As for alcohol, I'm not sure why anybody would choose to pay more for fuel that gives worse mileage and is worse for your vehicle. The use of ethanol is a result of combined political action by the farm and radical environmental lobbies, neither of whom give a care for the people who are forced to use the stuff.

Edit to add: I wrote this before Robert jumped into the thread with his informative posts, but wasn't able to immediately post it due to trouble with my internet connection.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/11/2012 01:06PM by Oxide.

"...left wing advocacy..."??? this is about old cars, not one winged airplanes...the comment made about snake oil that you seem very fixated on was directed at the lead additives marketed for use by automobiles for fuel made after the lead was removed. that stuff, in the opinion of the poster and every reputable automotive trade publication agrees. there is no issue with valve seat recession in these old cars and the original fear of that has been debunked by the trade publications as well. regards, tom