True or false ?

[TresCrows]

It was put in originnaly to boost octane. It is one of several octane boosting ingrediants. The only remaining commonly available gasoline containing lead is 100LL aviation fuel. It may be called low lead but it contains a fair amount of lead but when compared to overall fuel useage it has such a low impact on the environment that it has been allowed to remain. It is dyed blue and has other differences from auto fuel as well. The older green stuff of the same octane had even more lead. There is a new spec for av gas but it will be slow working into the market when it becomes accepted. The newer engines such as my IO360 have no more need for lead as a valve lubricant than a car but they do need the octane benefit when run at full rated power. I figure somewhere down the road I will have to install a FADEC, full authority digital engine control.
Yeah, Amoco sold unleaded fuel and old folks called it white gas but I always thought white gas was a lamp/stove fuel with somewhat different chemistry than actual gasoline. I always used Amoco as did my dad till all fuels became "white gas." I remember buying it at the old boat dock a few miles down from where we lived for my antique Johnson outboard that powered my little pirogue. The lead in auto fule fouled the plugs badly.
In a perfect world there would be no metal to metal contact, open an engine up and you will see evidence the world is not perfect. Engine start up, detonation, lugging and a variety of other things can produce metal to metal contact. Not to start an oil thread but it is always said there is no evidence of oil related failures so any oil is good--I have seen such failures that were oil related.
The crank bearings on most engines are a material called babbit or other similar compounds. Only two stroke engines and some high performance engines and some motorcycle engines have ball bearings on the crank---that I have seen anyway. Well, not all two strokes have ball bearings either, my old Johnson was babbit material also. Oil flows under pressure into the journal and the crank floats on a film of oil. Anything that disturbs that film is bad for your engine /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif. Now what kind of cheapo oil you use(generic you)? J

 

[Junkman]

The higher the octane the less gasoline per barrel of oil....... that was true then, and true now. To improve the quality of gasoline they need to further refine it. Makes you wonder why diesel usually costs more than gasoline since it is further down the refining scale. They do have some synthetic ways of raising octane however it still is a cost factor in the end. Lead was also added to increase the octane rating of the fuel, but back in 1922 when it was first invented, they didn't have high compression engines that required the higher levels of octane. Back then, they didn't even know about engine knocking, because the engines themselves were so loud that you couldn't hear the knocking if it was present. For more in depth reading about lead and its history, click here for the web page. The author doesn't go into the lubricating properties of lead, I believe, because it isn't a factor any longer. My 1962 turbo charged Corvair didn't need lead because by then, they already had hardened valves and valve seats. It did need the highest octane rated gasoline because of the 9.5 /1 compression ration and the fact that the atomized gasoline was being compressed and pushed into the cylinders under boost....... talk about pinging if you put regular in..... it sounded like there were marbles rolling around in the engine......

 

[pruntyc]

I had the understanding that babbit was used in the old car rod ends, cast on to them. They use to just put something in to take up the slack if it when out on a trip. I heard of bacon rinds and etc. I didn't think the new rod bearing were made of it anymore. But I don't work at that anymore, so I really don't know.

 

[Junkman]

Bacon is something that I had never heard of before, and I doubt that it would work...... just get pounded out before very long. In the old days, they would pour hot babbitt into the bearing cavity using a form and then carefully carve it away while fitting it to the crankshaft. A crude method, but it worked well if you had enough experience to know when to stop. Today, they are measured within a thousand of an inch and that is why they last so long. Closer tolerances mean less uneven wear.... just change the oil on a regular basis.....

 

[pruntyc]

The guy that told me about using bacon, worked on cars all the time. He said he used it go get home one time, he just droped the pan and put it in to get home. Don't have any idea how far he had to go, I didn't ask. But I do believe he did use it, at least that once. Yes the good old days, aren't we glad they are gone. Some one else can have them, I don't remember them being all that good. Some things were, but there sure was a lot of hard times to go with them. I walked a lot of the time, where today, no one does. When I was young, I thought nothing of walking home from town, 10 miles. I would go in with the folks and didn't want to go home when they did, so I would walk. I didn't have a car, of course no one else did either. Finally one kid did get a motor bike, he took us all rides, and we thought he was the greatest.

 

[Egon]

From a barrel of crude you only get 25% the volume of diesel as you do gasoline.

The white gas was probably pentane without the additives that gasoline has.

Egon

 

[Junkman]

That is the nice thing about getting old...... half the time you can say how good it was back then and the other half of the time you can say how good it is today...... best of both worlds.... just don't quite remember when I got so old, it just snook up on me one night and in the morning I had gray hair and wrinkles.... seemed that everyone after that was much younger than me or just as old as me....... not too many are much older than me now....... that is except for father time..... LOL...... Been around since Rex was a pup and older than dirt..... /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[pruntyc]

Yea I thought it was something, when my step-dad told me, "it seems like all my family is gone and all the fellows I went to school with". Now all my family is gone, except one younger sister. And a lot of the ones I went to school with too. So now I see what he meant. So I guess I must be getting old. Now if you ask me, I will deny it. But I don't believe white gas was much different than just plain gasoline. I don't think there was any difference in additives. It was just gas with out lead. Of course I don't believe there were very many additives in the gas in the olden times. I think that came later, as they learned that different additives would help in making the motors last longer and be more trouble free. Speaking of old days remember when we would go somewhere, and have to stop and remove a tire, along side of the road and patch it and pump it up my hand to get where we were going? Or put a clutch in, with the car just jacked up, and us under it, good old days??????????????? /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif

 

[Junkman]

sure glad to hear that there is someone older than me still left on this earth...... don't remember any of those things..... now what were we talking about Klem?????

 

[pruntyc]

I can't remember, was we talking????