Do I need lead additive in my fuel?

Chance M

Member
Hello,

I was told that I need lead additive in my M or I could possibly do damage and it will also make it run better.

Also I need to run stabil at all times or the ethanol will wreak havoc as well.

I got it tuned out as best I can. Under load it is smooth and lugs beautifully. But just runnin along no load it is not smoothest running. Don't get me wrong, it runs good though.

My main jet is said to be started off at 3 turns out. That is to rich. It runs fair at that setting but it puts out tons of black smoke, even when running at half to 3/4 throttle while my son rides around property. The idle needle makes little difference in how it runs unless I get under 1/2 turn in.

As I was saying, my uncle claims lead additive will let me achieve a smoother running engine. Says I'll never get it run perfect till I use the additive. Your thoughts plz.

Thanks

Chance
 

This is a full resto. Even blasted and painted all the bolts. I love this machine and want what is 100% best for its longevity and performance as it will be a working machine. Also will be a family heirloom. So, I'll have to google that up but something tells me your kidding teddy!!

I didn't grow up with leaded fuels. I know there are issues with it, but also know it does help with valve sealing and such.

I need good info my like minded forum friends.

Chance
 
I have never used 'lead'additive or stabil on any of my old tractors.IMHO,that stuff is 'snake oil'.I dont know how many(hard
working) thousand hrs my Super M has.Runs perfect,never had any problems.My other H/M And other old gas tractors,same way.You
have a carburation problem,The float is possibily set too high.Or the air cleaner pipe may be plugged.My Super runs clean at 5
turns out.That is the setting recommended in the manual.It's even been opened to 6 turns or a bit more and just puts out a
slight dark gray smoke at idle at that far out.Pull your carb.Look at float level.Save your money.leave those additives at the store.
 
yes the lead was the lube for the seats and guides. even adding some 2 cycle oil is a benefit for the engine.
any engine that has run on propane has excesive valve and guide wear compared to gasoline due to the dryness of propane.
 

Thank you sir!

You know, I set the float like the carb kit said but I was thinking of doing just what you are saying as a last stitch effort to see if I could rectify that.

Actual experience is what I needed to hear. I'll leave the lead on the shelf.

My uncle is a smart fella but over does things a bit. I'll not even discuss it with him again, haha.

Thank

Chance
 
(quoted from post at 06:56:37 08/23/15) Forget it. Snake oil!

I'm apologize. I see what you where implying. Lol, I thought you where serious about some kinda off the wall stuff I never heard of. Wasn't seeing the analytical angle you where using.

Thanks
 
Lead additive (really "lead substitute" ) will do nothing for how your M runs. Just search "lead additive" on this forum and you will find near-unanimous comments with explanations.
 
The lead was added to prevent valve ression in the older engines.They had 'soft' valves.The newer 'hardened' valves dont need
it.If it's been OHed ,it will have the newer valves.
 

Looking for the old salts to tell me their opinions. It's all I got to go on. I kinda doubted the lead is why I am here asking. He is one person and there are many here. And I'm sure some here are more experienced than he.

Thats 3 that implies the lead is "snake oil". I've gotta go on that.

I don't wanna mindlessly spend $ on additives that do nothing or even harm. But, will if the info pointed otherwise, as I love this machine.
 
+1 on no-lead additive, as stated it was due to soft valves & seats back in the day.
As far as sta-bil goes it's been proven in boat use where they sit more than they run. BUT......it left over a significant amount of time it will turn and create a product similar to concrete-cosmoline in your fuel system.
I prefer to take them out & run them as often as I can, around the block, around the field, anywhere that is handy for your situation. This alone will keep the fuel fresh, and your carb clean.
I have become quite popular with my suburban surroundings, hay rides using my car hauler, even made a few bucks from requests for birthday parties. It has been a lot of fun.
Safe operation is always a priority when dealing with children, even with that, I think I have more fun than the kids do.
 
Tetraethyllead (lead in gasoline) was introduced by GM and the Standard Oil Corp of New Jersey in the early 1020s. It was added to enable gasoline to be used with higher compression engines (by those days standards, near 6.5 to 1) the "ETYHL" gasoline provided anti knock protection in proportion to the amount blended into the fuel. It was never intended to provide lubrication. It did, however, result in nasty spark plug and cylinder deposits that were responsible for 7000 mile tuneups, oil contamination, and air pollution. It was not seen as a lubricant. DO some research on this, it is interesting. Substitutes are worthless and provide only lost income for the user, and profit for the scammers. Modern petroleum cracking catalysts, and Ethanol, are able to produce high Octane numbers with no "metallic" additives. Long live the engines. Jim
 
(quoted from post at 12:06:47 08/23/15) Tetraethyllead (lead in gasoline) was introduced by GM and the Standard Oil Corp of New Jersey in the early 1020s. It was added to enable gasoline to be used with higher compression engines (by those days standards, near 6.5 to 1) the "ETYHL" gasoline provided anti knock protection in proportion to the amount blended into the fuel. It was never intended to provide lubrication. It did, however, result in nasty spark plug and cylinder deposits that were responsible for 7000 mile tuneups, oil contamination, and air pollution. It was not seen as a lubricant. DO some research on this, it is interesting. Substitutes are worthless and provide only lost income for the user, and profit for the scammers. Modern petroleum cracking catalysts, and Ethanol, are able to produce high Octane numbers with no "metallic" additives. Long live the engines. Jim

Now that WAS a long time ago.
 
Any of that type of stuff is just a snake oil and does not even have any lead in it. Been running all my engines on unleaded for over 30 years now and yet to have any problems with it.
 
What ever you do, dont use Marvel Mystery oil, if not used up within a year, that turn's into the same thing that comes out of the back end of a cow.
 
some of these comments make me laugh. like i don't use additives and i have no problems.. .
well u need to have the engine disassembled and inspected for wear then you will see the difference. an engine will just keep
running and running even with wear!so... how can u tell or say that it is a snake oil or a waste of money? where's the proof?
any time there is extra lube in the fuel it is not a waste of money. anytime you compare a propane engine heads to gas engine
heads the proof is right in front of your eyes.
 
i dont believe that about mystery oil either. i am going to mix some up with gas in a can and let it sit for a year and see if it turns to cow poop.
 
Add my $.o2 cents worth. I use Startron in my gas. That breaks down the blasted government added corn poo. It can mess up rubber and pot metal like nobody can beleave. You should see the carb remains in my old chain saws from the 50s and 60s. Anyway,..... Stabil is good and startron and last is to throw some two cycle oil in to if you are worried about wear. I do this with my :K: series Kohler engines. When you had your carb apart you hold it upside down and look at the floats. They should be dead level with the top half. Another thing is if I will not use my machines for a bit I shut the gas valve and let her run out. Don't forget to turn off the key!
 
Jim and others have nailed it. you do NOT, I repeat DO NOT need lead additive. TEL was only added to increase octane. NO OTHER USE. In fact, the lead in TEL turned into a valve problem because of deposition of lead on the stems. lastly, I posted an exhaustive explanation of TEL and why it was added and what was added later to resolve the deposition problem.

If I can find the old post, I will add it to this thread.

Final answer: YOU DO NOT NEED LEAD ADDITIVE. Anyone, anytime can call me and I will explain why and the chemistry and the physics behind it. Send me a private message if you would like to have that discussion......I'll send you my phone number.

PS: Absolutely NO DISRESPECT to those who have been told over the years and continue to share that it is necessary. It has been an "urban legend" for years and is incorrect.
 
Some of you may be using leaded fuel and not know it (Much less lead than up thru the early 70's). In western Kansas many of the gas stations sell leaded regular and put the lead in the middle octane. I don't care if it has it or not, I just buy the cheapest one. That said, some stations will charge MORE for leaded. As to what farmers buy from distributers if they still have gasoline tractors I don't know.
 
Lead in the fuel is what wore the valves and the engines out. That's why engines don't need rebuilding anymore. My brother has
250,000 on his Olds. Other than intake gaskets the engine has not been touched.
 
Just gotta chime in here. That M will run on
unleaded gas, kerosene or granny clampetts
moonshine. Heck back in the 40s cheap farmers
ran low grade kerosene (distillate) in tractors.
 
Todd, spot on. kerosene has ZERO lead. Never had it, never will. it burns HOT. That is why on the early engines, there was water injection. In the Letter series tractors, the compression ratio was dropped rather significantly to burn kero and distillate.

consider the early kerosene engines. Valve heads and seats were cast iron. No lead, just good ol' fashioned kerosene. Water injection kept the engines from burning too hot and causing pre-ignition (burning valves and beating wrist pins to submission). That is why octane boosters were created. Slower burn reduces pre-ignition. IHC wrote a couple of books on it........in 1911 and 1917 (long before TEL was added). I have read both, and they talk extensively about pre-ignition, how to control it, and it's detrimental effect on engines. Timing, compression ratio and valve lash/lift all are tied tightly together and MUST be correctly set for a specific octane fuel. I have pontificated enough on this. again, if anyone would like to have a positive and engaging discussion on this, please send me a private message, I'll be happy to share a phone number to discuss.
 
I worked on aircraft when I was in flight school. One of the things we did every 25 hours was to pull and clean the plugs, two per
cylinder. The plugs would invariably be heavily fouled with lead deposits from burning the 100LL (Blue, low lead) aviation fuel.
What the "low lead" means is low compared to the old 145 purple premium avgas (No longer made, to the chagrin of warbirds
everywhere).
 
Tom, WHY confuse low octane fuel and pre-ignition with "burning hot"?

And if kero or distillate burn so "hot" why were radiator shutters typically needed to keep the engine hot enough to run decently when they were NOT needed with gasoline?
 
Bob, excellent question. Since the engine needs to run hotter to vaporize the Kerosene, it is more [i:6986d91060]prone[/i:6986d91060] to pre-ignition. To counteract the higher temperature, the burn rate was slowed down by water injection on the early engines. Early 10-20's and 15-30's had water injection to prevent pre-ignition. Compression ratios were lowered in the cylinder on letter series tractors to run on the distillate.

I"ll dig out those older IHC books on their engines, and post them here for people to reference if they wish. They are an excellent read about ignition, engine tuning, and just how these older engines were designed.
 
Ok, the book IHC published in 1918 titled "Internal Combustion Engines and Tractors" authored by Major Oliver B. Zimmerman.

It contains a fantastic amount of information about combustion, IHC engine design, and fuel chemistry information and charts. Talks about gasoline and kerosene. Pre-ignition is also covered very thoroughly.

411594197.jpg


411594206.jpg



Prior to Octane rating, Baume was used as the fuel rating method. The chart on page 76 of this book show the heat units and Baume. Kerosene has the highest heat rating of the 3 fuels, and yet the lowest Baume rating.

I can't re-type the entire 3 chapters on this, but I would suggest anyone truly interested get a copy of the book, or see if the local library can get one. It is a "must read" if you want to truly understand combustion engines, and how they were designed to burn the various fuels.[/img]
 
try this on your carb,engine warm full throttle turn the high screw in until you notice the engine starts to labor slightly then turn it out until it starts to run a little rich then back in just enough to level it off,sometimes if the main is to rich it will effect the idle also, even though it may differ slightly in the number turns from spec that doesn't mean it's wrong as other factors can cause the adjustment to vary,as mentioned before fuel level could be the problem from the float set wrong, bad float or leaking needle valve, as for lead additive no need to worry about that when the lead was removed from gas the cry was all older engines would suffer various premature failures especially valves, old super A and dad's M motors are over forty years old and still burn what ever is blended and run fine.
 

I noticed the idle effected by main jet, which doesn't make sense to me. Why have an idle mixture.....?

Should I see much "rich" smoke when the tractor is at working speed and at idle. If I lean the main to get rid or lesson the the rich condition i get a slight stumble if going from idle to high throttle quickly.....which tells me im lean. Ik I got valves that are seating well cuz I can lug in 5th around the yard at an idle....amazing the lugging capability of these gasses!! Reason I say that is cuz it just never seems to run as smooth as I'd like, but under load it runs smooth. Could just be that the engine needs a load on it....I dunno. I don't wanna run lean but I don't wanna run to rich either.

I tune kinda like your saying gbs. I'll try your method to a t....my needles are not at stock starting positions?... It runs far to rich at those settings.

Thanks for good info,
Chance
 
(quoted from post at 07:41:29 08/25/15)
I noticed the idle effected by main jet, which doesn't make sense to me. Why have an idle mixture.....?
Why an idle mixture? Let me take a swing at an explanation. This won't be quite technically correct, but give a general idea that may be helpful.

You can think of a carburetor as 2 carburetors inside the same housing. In normal above idle operation, the main carburetor is controlled by the throttle plate. Air flows past the main jet and draws in fuel, the amount regulated by the main jet adjustment (or simply by the jet size in non-adjustable carburetors).

At low idle speed, there is little air. It passes the main jet at a low speed so the main jet essentially quits working. Virtually no fuel is picked up. So another tiny carburetor (the idle circuit) is built into the side of the carburetor, right next to the edge of the throttle plate. A small hole right at the edge of the throttle plate acts as a jet for the tiny carburetor. The idle adjustment screw regulates the mixture.

There is a problem with this arrangement, transition from the tiny carburetor to the main carburetor. If the throttle plate is suddenly opened, the tiny carburetor quits working because the throttle plate is no longer forcing all intake air through the tiny carburetor. Meanwhile, the air flow hasn't yet increased enough to make the big carburetor start working. So you get a temporary lean condition. This can cause the engine to stumble when the throttle is opened. This is why car and truck carburetors usually have an accelerator pump. It squirts in an extra shot of gas as the throttle plate opens to compensate for the temporary lean. To get an engine to pass through the transition without an accelerator pump or other built in compensation requires everything to be just about perfect.

If the tiny carburetor isn't working quite right (for any number of reasons) the engine won't idle right. What frequently happens, a problem in the tiny carburetor is masked by increasing the idle speed. Consequently, the engine isn't really running on the tiny carburetor. Usually it is running in the transition area, getting some fuel from each carburetor. When this is happening, changing the main jet setting WILL make a difference in the idle.

There are multiple problems that can keep the tiny carburetor from working properly. Some of the common problems: improper float level, plugged or partially plugged passageway(s), damaged idle mixture screw or seat that prevents proper adjustment, throttle shaft that is worn enough to allow air to leak in, and a throttle plate that is not properly positioned on the throttle shaft.

Any or all or none of these problems may be contributing to your situation. Again, some of this explanation may not be technically correct or applicable to all carburetors. But I think it may help with a general idea of how the various adjustments can interact with each other.
 

Very nice explanation Jim!

Well, I discovered earlier today, I got a bad float. Fuel inside. I assume this is the issue.

I pulled the valve cover and did a hot valve adjustment....plugs where fouled as a result of the float...running rich as heck.

I figure the float would cause this right jim? I'd say the float was somewhere between 1/8th and 1/4 full of fuel, closer to and 1/8th.

Thanks
Chance
 
A float that is filling with gas is a heavy float and yep will cause an engine to run oddly at best
 
(quoted from post at 13:02:40 08/25/15) A float that is filling with gas is a heavy float and yep will cause an engine to run oddly at best

Float be here Monday....The Rams for my 3 point are delayed as well....nothing is going right....

We gettin there though fellas....I've saved my fields to be brush hogged for this tractor. Hopefully next week I'll be cutting and tilling my garden.
 

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