Tiny,
yep an unfortunate part of leaded petrol being abolished is the extra expense to the owners of vintage vehicles.
The valves and seats do wear at a greater rate due to the lack of the lead barrier between the two as they peen away at each other, but not at an alarming rate!
I have heard of inserts failing....mainly due to the task being normally handballed to the Apprentice to do, while all the higher paid tradesmen do the rest of the work!
I have not converted any of my engines........just fit stainless steel valves and run the flash-lube to keep the valve guides lubricated, as this was one of the jobs that the lead in the petrol USED to do.
Funny that.....new heads, unleaded fuel, no valve guide lubrication = sticking valves!
The flash-lube also fights against pinging caused by the lower octane rating of the unleaded fuel.
My bog standard 179 cu.in. HOLDEN six pings its ring out without the flash-lube, even though I run nothing but quality High Octane "Premium Unleaded" in all my vehicles.
Last edited by doc bob; 07/25/2008 3:05 PM.
