Re: Another New Member_fuel lines & more
Posted: 27 Jan 2018 20:21
If you look up Cleveland Discol or the Distillers Company, then there should be an accurate account of the amount of alcohol blended, I will look it up for you if someone does not post before the weekend is out. Do you have to be rude about my father, only I am allowed to call him The Old Man? If you have been following all the hype in the old car fraternity then they were all up in arms about the rubber seal if the engines had them, used not being suitable for alcohol blends of fuels. We seem now to have another group that is now arguing against its use on vehicles that were designed since it was readily available - I give up.
There is nothing wrong with rapeseed oil being used as a fuel, Mr Ford designed his engines specifically to run on bio fuels at the turn of the previous century owing to petrol garages being 500 miles apart, the local farmers could then produce their own fuel. Brasil has been producing bio fuels for at least 20 years, `I think the laws there were that at weekends all cars had to run on 30% alcohol blends and 'normal' during the week. I believe there was some fuss on the cars not running as well obviously because the carburettors did not have bigger jets fitted but then most of their cars were VW Beetles so who cares. On the Vincents sprint bikes with Amal GP carbs we could not get main jets big enough and would drill the jets out having worked out what the cross sectional area should be. A lot of the people would shave off the fins of the barrels to try and get the engines warm. In the Vintage club at the time, and before that, it was common to race at Cadwell with 100% methanol, a friend had a MK1 KTT Velo with a CR of around 12:1 with reduced finning on the already skimpy finned barrel and the engine would still come back just warm.
Modern engines with plastic inlet manifolds already take these modern fuels into account. Old car fuss pots are stripping down their engines to put in Viton seals which was not available before the 1960's (I can be corrected on that) and if you insist on using leaded petrol in your nice hew GlobBox, if you can find the designated garages that are licensed to stock it, try a back to back run and see if it is worth the £1.50 a litre or however much it is now. Do you really want to go back to the 15,000 miles decoke as it was then - if you can unglue a modern engine in the first place, or simply run the car to its life time life of 70,000 miles and scrap it?
If you can remember back to the 1970's farmers were paid by the Common Agricultural Policy and Europe and created all sorts of surpluses, wine surpluses that was poured away(could have distilled the alcohol off), butter mountains(could have made diesel), wheat stockpiles(alcohol) that the rats ate etc. If developing countries which sounds like yours and mine concern, were more efficient in their farming and controlled the corruption and misappropriation of aid, then they would be able to produce biofuels to cook with and perhaps run tractors rather than importing kerosine and deforesting the forests to cook with. I read recently that about thirty years ago this country produced around 1200 tons of rapseed a year, that amount is in the hundred of thousands now, which is used in a variety ways from bio fuels, cooking oils, lubricating oils etc. The farmer across from me has started growing the stuff because he cannot sell the crops that you perhaps think he should grow. Is it that much different that America converts all the corn on the cobs into sugars that have created that country to be classed as Fat(sorry PC says clinically obese) and sell us the same as 'modified maize starch' to put into out Macdonalds BSE burgers and other processed instant crap because the average person cannot cook?
Sorry I am digressing, but I do understand your concerns, but having followed this lead free fuel and ethanol thing for 30years and reading all the doom mongers and ill informed why not just enjoy what we have got and throw anything into the tank as long as it burns, some of us won't be here when you others will all be standing around to have the batteries recharged at the side of the road with your ranges of about thirty miles.
There is nothing wrong with rapeseed oil being used as a fuel, Mr Ford designed his engines specifically to run on bio fuels at the turn of the previous century owing to petrol garages being 500 miles apart, the local farmers could then produce their own fuel. Brasil has been producing bio fuels for at least 20 years, `I think the laws there were that at weekends all cars had to run on 30% alcohol blends and 'normal' during the week. I believe there was some fuss on the cars not running as well obviously because the carburettors did not have bigger jets fitted but then most of their cars were VW Beetles so who cares. On the Vincents sprint bikes with Amal GP carbs we could not get main jets big enough and would drill the jets out having worked out what the cross sectional area should be. A lot of the people would shave off the fins of the barrels to try and get the engines warm. In the Vintage club at the time, and before that, it was common to race at Cadwell with 100% methanol, a friend had a MK1 KTT Velo with a CR of around 12:1 with reduced finning on the already skimpy finned barrel and the engine would still come back just warm.
Modern engines with plastic inlet manifolds already take these modern fuels into account. Old car fuss pots are stripping down their engines to put in Viton seals which was not available before the 1960's (I can be corrected on that) and if you insist on using leaded petrol in your nice hew GlobBox, if you can find the designated garages that are licensed to stock it, try a back to back run and see if it is worth the £1.50 a litre or however much it is now. Do you really want to go back to the 15,000 miles decoke as it was then - if you can unglue a modern engine in the first place, or simply run the car to its life time life of 70,000 miles and scrap it?
If you can remember back to the 1970's farmers were paid by the Common Agricultural Policy and Europe and created all sorts of surpluses, wine surpluses that was poured away(could have distilled the alcohol off), butter mountains(could have made diesel), wheat stockpiles(alcohol) that the rats ate etc. If developing countries which sounds like yours and mine concern, were more efficient in their farming and controlled the corruption and misappropriation of aid, then they would be able to produce biofuels to cook with and perhaps run tractors rather than importing kerosine and deforesting the forests to cook with. I read recently that about thirty years ago this country produced around 1200 tons of rapseed a year, that amount is in the hundred of thousands now, which is used in a variety ways from bio fuels, cooking oils, lubricating oils etc. The farmer across from me has started growing the stuff because he cannot sell the crops that you perhaps think he should grow. Is it that much different that America converts all the corn on the cobs into sugars that have created that country to be classed as Fat(sorry PC says clinically obese) and sell us the same as 'modified maize starch' to put into out Macdonalds BSE burgers and other processed instant crap because the average person cannot cook?
Sorry I am digressing, but I do understand your concerns, but having followed this lead free fuel and ethanol thing for 30years and reading all the doom mongers and ill informed why not just enjoy what we have got and throw anything into the tank as long as it burns, some of us won't be here when you others will all be standing around to have the batteries recharged at the side of the road with your ranges of about thirty miles.