Information on Unleaded fuel

[Adam]

Good morning , I am new to this forum so apologies if this question is not in the correct forum !

I recently purchased a 13/60 with 34,000 original miles on the clock , the previous owner said it ran fine on unleaded fuel but from my understanding there has been no conversion and wanted to know is this ok ? should I have the conversation done , she runs beautifully ...

Many Thanks Adam 

[Nigel Clark]

Hi Adam,

Welcome to Triumph ownership and to this forum. 

Most, me included, take the view that converting to unleaded with hardened exhaust valve seats is unnecessary, unless the cylinder head needs to be removed for some other reason,  then get it converted.  Some will advise using an unleaded additive to prevent valve seat recession.  I've not found that necessary, my GT6 covered about 30k miles on unleaded without additives before general wear and tear caused me to rebuild the engine,  at which point I had the head converted. 

Nigel

[Paul H]

I would use E5 premium . I use Tesco Momentum with no additives 

Paul 

[Clive]

And I would suggest that you do nothing to teh engine (unless you intend driving it hard)

However, you DO need to change all teh fuel rubber hoses to ethanol resistant stuff. Do not be tempted to buy from ebay or accept R6 hose frm a local supplier.

You can buy the correct hose (1/4" 0r 6mm) from the TSSC club shop, who get it from Moss 

https://www.glencoeltd.co.uk/cohline-fuel-vacuum-hose/cohline-fuel-hose-high-pressure/cohline-2240-r9-specification-rubber-fuel-injection-hose-6-mm-push-on-e85-compatible/  are another supplier of top quality hose. 

the E5 fuel will probably be better, but I am happy to put any grade of petrol in my cars. So don't worry too much. Most important is to not leave the fuel in the tank too long, ie keep using the car!

 

[Pete Lewis]

the answer to why its not entirely needed to have exhaust seats fitted until something  needs the head removing 

is the old cast iron has over many years of leaded petrol that the iron has absorbed a good quantity of lead in the valve seats 

which will maintain your valve seat protection for thousands of miles to come 

do stick to 97+  E5 fuel to keep the timing as near to factory as possible  and cooler better performance than 95 E10 gives 

and drive it , it will be fine 

if you replace the fuel hose be careful there are these rubber slivers that plague many   those are small bits of rubber that get sliced of when refitting hoses on metal pipework  good quality like gates  barricade  should cope better but cheap market fake rubber is the biggest  culprit 

and as for E10 we dont know of anyone having the car dissolve over night ( as yet)  

beware of the myths of pub talk 

if you use club shop you need to be a club member and use a different log in to the forum to get the club prices 

Pete

 

Pete

 

[Mike Costigan]

Fitting hardened valve seats is probably unnecessary unless you are going to subject the car to continuous hard driving. Triumph engines tend to have good low-down torque, so if you adopt  traditional style of driving using that torque rather than revving the nuts off it you'll be fine.

I have experienced 'dissolving' issues with modern fuel on both my cars, but I suspect the problem is with the modern blends rather than ethanol. Both my cars have brass carburettor floats with soldered construction, and both have had the floats collapse with all traces of the original solder gone! Both situations occurred when I was still using pre-E5 fuel, so I can safely say ethanol was not the culprit.

[Colin Lindsay]

26 minutes ago, Mike Costigan said:

Fitting hardened valve seats is probably unnecessary unless you are going to subject the car to continuous hard driving.

+1 to that - many of the 'mods' we've been recommended / sold over the years apply to semi-race-style driving or high-mileage use rather than relaxed cruising / pottering about. If you only do 500 miles a year you'll probably never need valve seats. (Nor an oil cooler either)

[Pete Lewis]

brass floats   now that reminds me of engines from the Humber works  who obviously made Commer versions

these were run on gas on the test benches in the factory and often there was a back fire this flattened the brass floats 

so on the end of assy line they flooded and poured fuel out , whip the top off the carb and there sat a pancked brass float 

progress !!!!!

Pete

[Badwolf]

Spotted this about adding 15% ethanol to fuel in the US. I was interested in the smog aspect. It probably would not be the same over here but I offer the link for your information..

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/12/biden-waiving-ethanol-rule-in-bid-to-lower-gasoline-prices.html

[Chris A]

Not heard anything here about smog problems due to high ethanol levels in fuel, interesting. Here we have E85 as well as 5 & 10. The 85 is around 1/2 the price of the others, it was 1/3 a while ago, because it isn't taxed as much not necessarily any cheaper to produce.