What kind of Gas to use in Old Farmall

Anonymous-0 · Apr 6, 2013

I have an old Farmall (50+years old - relatively small machine). What should I use for Gas? 87 Octane or High Octane? Should I put a lead additive in with the fuel?
Thanks for any insights.

Whichester1 · Apr 6, 2013

87 Octane will work fine, suggest you stay away from ethanol. Would not worry about lead replacement additives unless you plan to work your tractor at high load factors for extended periods of times.

rankrank1 · Apr 6, 2013

(quoted from post at 01:19:16 04/07/13) I have an old Farmall (50+years old - relatively small machine). What should I use for Gas? 87 Octane or High Octane? Should I put a lead additive in with the fuel?
Thanks for any insights.

Well you did not say what model Farmall, but all my ole junkers including my Farmall h, Farmall M, and John Deere A get 93 octane from me. They probably do not actually need 93 octane, since none of them are high compression engines. I mainly choose the 93 octane since I believe it has a chance of lasting a bit longer in storage before causing problems on a tractor that sits around a lot. 93 octane is usually less likely to have as much ethonal in it as 87 octane has. I try to avoid ethonal if I can for tractors and 2-cycle stuff too. I do not mind ethonal in my car though as it gets used up fast. Also as gas sits around it can lose a few octane. If you start out with more octane than you need then not as big a deal if you lose a few octane in storage.

As you know, no gas will keep forever, so try to run it some. I do not use any lead additives at all.

randy hall · Apr 6, 2013

we use a bunch of gas tractors from a farmall a to a couple of 706's and they all get 87 and run fine.

Ted in NE-OH · Apr 6, 2013

87 octane is much higher than it was designed for. The higher the octane , the harder it is to fire , so it doesn"t ping on high compression engines.

David G · Apr 6, 2013

I run 87 in mine

old · Apr 6, 2013

No lead snake oil needed. Back when thses old tractor where made the gas was not as good in many ways as it is today but also this new gas with alcohol is not as good in other ways. Either way you can run the cheapest stuff you can and be just fine. Back in the day they where made to run on very poor fuels

John B. · Apr 6, 2013

Years ago we found by adding some "104+ Octane Boost" bought at Wal-Mart helped prevent fouling of the spark plugs. We discovered this around 1990 with some other low compression air cooled engines. The sparkplugs didn't get plugged up with deposits they just got a black coating on them that would short them out by letting the electric spark flow thru the carbon film instead of jumping the gap to create the spark. Cleaning the plugs helped but we found the octane boost cured the problem. I add the octane boost to tractors that will sit for long periods of time without being run. Other than that I don't use it in the everyday tractors unless they need it.

David G · Apr 7, 2013

Old, the lead is not needed at all if the head has been redone with hardened seats. I would bet a good portion of these tractors have already had that done.

MarkB_MI · Apr 7, 2013

The so-called "lead" additives contain no lead. Any tractor that was broken in on leaded fuel will have enough lead embedded in its valve seats to prevent wear.

Bear in mind that your Farmall was designed to run on pretty crappy fuel. The only reason to run higher octane than regular gas would be if someone installed high-compression pistons at some point in time. In that case, you would hear pinging under load. No pinging, no need use premium gas.

As for ethanol, it's a fact of life that almost all gasoline has added ethanol, so there's no point in worrying about something over which you have no control. I would not rely on any fuel supplier's claim that their fuel is ethanol-free without testing it myself.

In other words, buy regular gas from a supplier you trust, and fuggetaboutit.

rustyfarmall · Apr 7, 2013

(quoted from post at 17:19:16 04/06/13) I have an old Farmall (50+years old - relatively small machine). What should I use for Gas? 87 Octane or High Octane? Should I put a lead additive in with the fuel?
Thanks for any insights.

I've got a 1940 M, and a 1940 H. Both run quite well on E85. Going on 3 or 4 years now.

old · Apr 7, 2013

The valve stuff is just a myth and the old seats will be just fine with out the lead. The lead was there to help cut down in pinging and they now have other additives to stop that

jacks · Apr 7, 2013

87 Octane should work fine in your Farmalls. Hi Octane gas is not needed in a low compression tractor engine. Also you don"t need any lead additives. Studies and testing have shown that valve seat recession running no lead gas only happens in high RPM engines. Since most gas tractor engines are low RPM, you will be fine. If you have access to non ethanol gas, you will be way better off using it. If you are in a humid climate, the ethanol will attract moisture and cause corrosion in your tank and carb. The ethanol can also cause various rubber compounds on carburetor parts to soften or swell up and fail. I just rebuilt a carb yesterday that had failed in this way due to ethanol gas. If you have to run an ethanol gas, I would recommend draining your fuel tank and carb float chamber if you need to let it sit more than three weeks.

What kind of Gas to use in Old Farmall

Anonymous-0

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