My 52 Chevy has the original 216, and doesn't appear to have ever been apart. Odometer shows 86000 miles. Is lead additive required i the fuel? Just wondering before I start racking up miles.
This was a huge scare in 1984 when they removed the lead to protect the catalytic converters. I've seen no overwhelming rise of collector car engine failures. No one can say with any certainty but in over 25 years of usage I see no reason to panic now.
I run hardened valve seats in all my flattys. Don't have to worry with those. Posted from the TJJ App for iPhone & iPad
I have several 216's and Babbitt 235's. All are original and all have a lot of miles on them. The only thing I use on occasion is a Chevron Techroline fuel system cleaner additive and so far no troubles. I don't like the Ethanol but in my state I have to learn to live with it. Normbc9
Already several threads and many discussions on this subject. Lots of proof both ways. Eventually the heads and valves will be harmed. Lead was added for a reason. Fuel companies don't spend money for no reason. They even saw fit to start charging even more for leaving lead out of modern fuel. Then more yet to add corn juice in place of yet more fuel. Drive it easy and enjoy the car. Since you live where even the town name is HILL you will be laboring that engine. Or add a lead additive and run the hell out of it. I have no facts or figures, just bad heads from several SBC's. Coincidentally never had this problem before no-lead. Listen to whoever you want. Time will tell!
The best gasoline you could buy in the 60's was Amoco white gas, It did not ruin your mufflers and the car ran cleaner. It was the only gas you can run in a coleman lantern, except coleman fuel which I suspect was Amoco. Never had a problem and we did not baby them. It had no lead.
I once ran out of gas while pulling an RV with my 460 Ford pick up. Poured in a can of Coleman fuel and drove few miles to gas station. Shortly after, probably months, engine went bad at 10,0?? miles. Yes right after waurantee. Coincidence ?
When your car was made the only gas available was low octane, low lead or no lead. Today's 87 octane is actually higher than premium was in 1952. So, your car will run fine on the lowest octane regular. No additive or high test required. However if you want to be all Felix Unger about it you could add some upper cylinder lube like Redex, Marvel Mystery Oil or Bardahl to protect the rings, valves and cylinders. These were more prone to wear on the old engines and a little extra oil can't hurt.
Pump gas is pure shit nowa days. My Olds wont run worth a shit on it. Hard to start and sounds like im dragging a log chain. If I run 100LL or racing fuel (a mix). It starts right up and no more pinging. If you find a small airport near by, tell them you have a old aircraft your working on at home and need some fuel. They should give you 5 gal. or so whenever you need it. Give them a tail number. N5147F for example. Mix 5 gal. with 94 and that will help out alot. Them old carbs don't like the alcohol thats in the pump gas either..
If you can find some lead additive, its never going to hurt anything. I cant even buy it anymore, they banned it a few years back. I needed some for my old John Deer 40. So I run a little ATF or 2 stroke oil in the gas. It wont hurt it. I know several people who run ATF in their gas. I don't know the ratio, its not very much. If you get to much it will smoke. I did however find that the STA-BIL is also a upper cylinder lubricant, so I run that in it now and since I don't use it very often, it keeps my gas good as well. They will all run on regular gas, they just wont last as long.
Coleman fuel didnt hurt it. My dad poured TWO gallons in our 68 Plymouth wagon with a 440 & we drove prob 30 miles to a gas station.We were camped & fishing in a remote part of the Snake River in Idaho & it was on "E" when we got there,,,,ooops. Troy Cagle
If I'm not mistaken, the lead was used as an additive to keep the valves from hammering the relatively soft seats. Worst case scenario you'll need to add some hardened valve seats
I have driven about 90k miles in my 216 , I use good oil and I have adjusted the valves carefully and I don't hammer it. If I am towing the car transporter I use a little moorays upper cyl lube, but that is only occasionally. Most times when the deck is loaded , I just drive carefully , as you would with 70+ yr old brakes The engine has about 138k original miles on it and seems just fine.
Ran my 216 a long time, dumped in the cheapest gas I could find. Never gave me any trouble, sold it and still goiong strong.
Although there will be some variation between one engine and another, the general rule is that valve seat erosion is not a problem without lead unless the engine is consistently run at high loads. When running a car engine for a brief time on white gas, naptha, or Coleman fuel, the problem isn't the valve seats, it's detonation that can hurt things.
The one gallon of Coleman fuel may not have ruined my 460 Ford engine but as I said sure was a coincidence. As for the Canadian member who said gas didn't have lead and wasn't even 87 octane in 1952------ I worked in a Clark Super 100 station in Illinois then. They only sold 100 octane leaded gas. No regular. Probably all other midwestern gas stations sold both regular and 100+ octane fuel. Lead was added to gas many years ago to prevent valve and seat wear. When we retired in 1994 I had to add Octain Additive to the best high test in the midwest to get our 440 Dodge motorhome to stop pinging under load while traveling. That was with rebuilt heads and dizzy. Also a trick I learned, add a few ounces of Mystery Oil to the gas in my old Harley Panhead when highway driving. I keep saying, they added lead for a reason. Don't use it if you don't want to. It's your engine.
I used to work in a machine shop and I seen a lot of seats hammered out and valves tuliped or cupped. It was caused by no lead in the gas and not having hard valve seats. It may take several miles before it hurts your motor but it will do it over time. Add the lead or get hard seats
You may have sold 100 octane gas but it wasn't in 1952. Nobody did. Highest octane gas was under 80 octane unless you went to an airport. Leaded gas was available, in fact it was first made in 1928. But in 1952 they used very little even in high test. The heavily leaded high octane gas was not offered in gas stations until 1954 and 55. From then on they quickly raised the octane of both hi test and regular until by 1960, typical regular was 88 octane and hi test 98 octane, with Blue Sunoco at 103 and I have heard of other brands up to 110. A stock 1952 Chevy has 6.6:1 compression (6.7 with Powerglide) and will run fine on gas of 65-70 octane. The motors that suffered when lead went away were the high compression, high performance V8s made between 1955 and 1970. Older and newer than that, they were built for low lead or no lead gas.
I'm no expert or even close.....In the last 25 I've taken apart many old Chevy 6's. Every head had hammered exhaust seats,actually metal peened over into the valve port.Maybe the old Chevy 216-235's have soft cast iron seats.Maybe it was the lack of lead.....By the way,everyone one of them had stainless exhaust valves from the factory. Supposedly lead was first used to raise octane.Later it was discovered the lead aided heat transfer of the valve to the seat under severe conditions. It seems that back in the good old days many engines needed valve jobs at 50,000 miles so the lack of lead didn't mean much in low performance engines.
So...Once again, I see that everyone is in agreement on an issue. I'm running the typical lead substitute you buy at the local parts house, 1/2 bottle for every tank. And I do drive like a grandpa, as I'm trying my best to save the old flattie. Besides, I am a grandpa! The way I see it, I'm covering my butt both ways. We aren't talking a lot of money for the lead substitute, so if I don't need it, big deal. I'm more concerned about the water that the ethanol attracts than anything else. I've considered adding some of the methanol we use in the sprint car to see if it will mix.
Agreed. 30 years of lead kept the old 318 seats fine, but this Ethanol, and especially right now as they add more in colder weather, has been the only problem in my 60s Dodge and old pontiac. Shit seems to go bad way faster, get gummy fast despite using Sta-bil, and seems to put a lot of extra H2O out the exhaust. Even a week or two without starting can cause some junky shit to form in the gas lines.
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