For running your car on unleaded, you should be fine if you fill it with leaded every few tanks. I'm sure there are unspeakable quantities of information available on the subject.
Indeedy. Looks like the options are:
- Use leaded petrol all the time. This isn't really a viable option since the nearest petrol station that does genuine leaded is in Bury St Edmunds, for fuck's sake. Admittedly I could go there and buy gallons and gallons of petrol in big buckets, and fill her up by hand at home, but that seems a bit stupid when there are other options.
- Use leaded every now and then, use something else the rest of the time. Stockpiling petrol at home would actually make this a viable solution, and vice versa.
- Use unleaded with lead-additive, valve-lubricating stuff. Apparently Castrol Valvemaster is what I'm after here. ("Valvemaster" sounds incredibly rude, now I come to think of it.)
- Use unleaded and hope for the best. Apparently engines which have been run on lead have a reasonable "lead memory" and if you don't thrash the engine too much [fx: laughter] you should be okay for a while. Main problem with this option is that I have no idea how long "a while" is likely to be, and wouldn't necessarily know how to tell if it was going wrong until, I dunno, the engine exploded or whatever.
- New cylinder-heads. 150 quid isn't really that much to pay for a long-term solution that would let me not have to worry about the petrol. Though add on some money for fitting (I am a complete novice at car-maintenance, I'm looking forward to learning but no way am I replacing cylinder-heads myself any time soon), and the faff required to get the car to Wisbech or wherever-the-hell-in-the-middle-of-the-godforsaken-fens the local moggy mechanic hides.
This reminds me of my dear friend frou_frou and her fondness for old cars. Although she did fall for the siren call of recent models with these newfangled 'technological improvements' and 'stuff that works' and so on.
Hey, most of the things in my car work, and those that don't are fixable. As for "technological improvements", it's incredible really to think that even after 50 years of such "improvements" nobody's really managed to come up with a commercially-viable alternative to the internal combustion engine. The things that she's missing are mostly things I can do without -- who needs a heater when you've got one bit of metal between yourself and the engine? Who needs courtesy lights when you can keep a mini-maglite in your pocket? :)
The thing that's currently puzzling me is that the car has an aerial for no apparent reason. It looks like it should have a radio, but if it does then there's no apparent way to switch it on and off, much less tune it. But it would be so cool to actually have a radio -- I mean, a wireless -- in the car.
Did I mention that I'm turning into a complete and utter bore about this car?
Her current vehicle is a 1970s BMW.
1970s? Bah! Modern rubbish! (Says the girl who was born in 1978...)
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Date: 2003-02-24 07:05 am (UTC)Indeedy. Looks like the options are:
- Use leaded petrol all the time. This isn't really a viable option since the nearest petrol station that does genuine leaded is in Bury St Edmunds, for fuck's sake. Admittedly I could go there and buy gallons and gallons of petrol in big buckets, and fill her up by hand at home, but that seems a bit stupid when there are other options.
- Use leaded every now and then, use something else the rest of the time. Stockpiling petrol at home would actually make this a viable solution, and vice versa.
- Use unleaded with lead-additive, valve-lubricating stuff. Apparently Castrol Valvemaster is what I'm after here. ("Valvemaster" sounds incredibly rude, now I come to think of it.)
- Use unleaded and hope for the best. Apparently engines which have been run on lead have a reasonable "lead memory" and if you don't thrash the engine too much [fx: laughter] you should be okay for a while. Main problem with this option is that I have no idea how long "a while" is likely to be, and wouldn't necessarily know how to tell if it was going wrong until, I dunno, the engine exploded or whatever.
- New cylinder-heads. 150 quid isn't really that much to pay for a long-term solution that would let me not have to worry about the petrol. Though add on some money for fitting (I am a complete novice at car-maintenance, I'm looking forward to learning but no way am I replacing cylinder-heads myself any time soon), and the faff required to get the car to Wisbech or wherever-the-hell-in-the-middle-of-the-godforsaken-fens the local moggy mechanic hides.
This reminds me of my dear friend frou_frou and her fondness for old cars. Although she did fall for the siren call of recent models with these newfangled 'technological improvements' and 'stuff that works' and so on.
Hey, most of the things in my car work, and those that don't are fixable. As for "technological improvements", it's incredible really to think that even after 50 years of such "improvements" nobody's really managed to come up with a commercially-viable alternative to the internal combustion engine. The things that she's missing are mostly things I can do without -- who needs a heater when you've got one bit of metal between yourself and the engine? Who needs courtesy lights when you can keep a mini-maglite in your pocket? :)
The thing that's currently puzzling me is that the car has an aerial for no apparent reason. It looks like it should have a radio, but if it does then there's no apparent way to switch it on and off, much less tune it. But it would be so cool to actually have a radio -- I mean, a wireless -- in the car.
Did I mention that I'm turning into a complete and utter bore about this car?
Her current vehicle is a 1970s BMW.
1970s? Bah! Modern rubbish! (Says the girl who was born in 1978...)
('Verity' is good, but I still prefer 'Lucy'.)
'Lucy' is cute. :)