Good Riddance to Lead

[Wildthings]

I don't find this off topic in any way, it could not be more related to antique automobiles as it is a big part of their history.

[SGKent]

Mike - lead not only increased the octane, but it also acted as a lubricant like graphite on the valve seats and guides. In the 1971 dual port bus, VW installed guides and valve seats that were designed to operate without lead. I can remember doing lots of head work in the late 70's on 60's cars where the removal of lead caused all sorts of valve failures. Think of it like ethanol. If the car is designed to operate with it all is fine. The 1970's buses all were designed to work without lead in the fuel.

Lead remained in aircraft fuels because without it the number of engine failures increased. It wasn't until recently that most all piston driven aircraft engines are no lead compliant.

The main gain from removing lead was the removal of it from the environment, and the health benefits of no lead in the air, water, and soil etc., especially to children.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[aeromech]

My high school buddy drove a 1969 land cruiser to school. I’ve wanted one ever since then. Can’t touch one these days for a reasonable price. I really wanted the LC wagon
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Lead Mechanic: San Diego Air and Space Museum
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VW type 1 1962,63,65,69,72
VW Type 2 1971 (3 ea.) 1978, 1969
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Capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound

[SGKent]

Also - back in the 70's STP would make that build up as would mineral oil based oils like the Valvoline Racing oil everyone was using back then. I could always tell which engines had used STP by the sludge build up in their engine when we went to do the machine work. I could also tell who wasn't changing their oil and who was using non-detergent oils just from how the sludge built up in their engines.
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[Wildthings]

[my59]

With 170+k miles on the December 58 36 hp, having never been rebuilt, I put lead additive in.
Having lived in an 1860's project house with a newborn, getting the lead outta there was more important.
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my59: Well son, my grandfather died before I got to drive it, so does that answer your question?
our79: sunroof bus w/camper interior and 2.0 FI
Other:'12 Jetta, '77 Benz 300D, and a 74 MG Midget.

[Wildthings]

[TDCTDI]

This should be posted in “off topic”.
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Everybody born before 1975 has a story, good, bad, or indifferent, about a VW.


GOFUNDYOURSELF, quit asking everyone to do it for you!


An air cooled VW will make you a hoarder.


Do something, anything, to your project every day, and you will eventually complete it.

[Wildthings]

[TDCTDI]

[raygreenwood]

I agree....getting rid of lead in motor fuel.....was a majr move forward health wise.

It was also not as simple as saying "get rid of lead". As others have mentioned....changes needed to be made to maintain a level of reliability in engines and they were not always simple. As mentioned, lead was both an octane booster (sorely needed because the CHEAP refined fuels of the time were notoriously low in octane) ...and a lubricant. Valve seat alloys needed to be changed. Valve guide alloys and tolerance on some engines needed to be changed.

However, the statistics are a little muddled as to whether "just" removing lead from motor fuel was the single large mover of lowering the accumulated lead in human bodies.

There have been a range of studies of roadside silt along both highways that have been in place from start to now....in the interstate system.....as well as on railway grades that have been in place from high steam times through current usage (this point is important)

Alongside major highways.....the ground a few inches under the surface has a high level of lead and....an even deeper layer of mixed toxins...lead, zinc, cadmium etc.....from "tire dust". Where you do you think your tires go when they wear out?

Tire rubber contains a HUGE amount of lead.

Back to the railway thing.
Coal fired trains produced and dumped vast amounts of smoke, ash and cinders every inch of the way.

In the 1930's at the height of coal fired trains .....when we had an easy 250,000 locomotives on the rails......each one burning an average of 25 to 60 lbs of coal per minute depending on speed.......the trains alone accounted for 25-30% consumption of the total coal mined in the US every year.....not even yet accounting for... home heating...steel making and powering virtually every factory in the US.......for over 100 years.

The coal ash from this vast usage was dumped by the ton into yards of homes, factories, rivers and alongside every mile of the 129,000 to 175,000 miles of American railroad track (depending on year).

Coal ash contains high amounts of lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium, arsenic, copper, carbon and selenium....lots of it.

The reason why its not quite clear whether "JUST" removing lead from motor fuels by itself if the main factor....is because while about half the fleet of steam locos between 1930 and 1945 were moved to fuel oil....the fuel oil in itself also has heavy metals in its soot including lead, nickel and others....just a different mix......wholesale "dieselization" of the American railway system started in 1953....and was largely done within 5-7 years.

On site coal burning for home heating and factory use was downgrading heavily through the 1960's. Oil and gas was just too cheap.

Bluntly put.....the usage of lead bearing products was already dropping heavily by the early 1960's. It was already being voluntarily removed from residential paints by the mid to late 60's before the 1971 ban on its use in homes and the subsequent 1978 ban on its manufacture in the US.

So.....the studies I mentioned noted that as polluted as the soil is next to highways (with lead and heavy metals and aromatics from the rubber).....the soils next to legacy railway lines are MUCH more heavily polluted than the highways.

Coal smoke and ash were much higher carriers of lead...and used for longer and in higher volumes than motor fuel with lead.

And.....three major lead bearing products disappeared within almost a single 10 year span......extreme coal usage on a wide scale, manufacturing of leaded paints ....and motor fuel with gasoline.

Which one had the most benefit? Don't know.

Ray

[SGKent]

Just be thankful they left the Toluene in some model glue. Imagine a world where no one had leaded avgas or Toluene to sniff .. .
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[Clatter]

I pay a lot more for to run leaded race gas.
It's best for break-in, and you can run things tighter until they break in without sticking.
I've had pump gas stick a valve in a guide breaking in.
Pump gas turns to goo if it sits, too.

My dad had a doctor friend who smoked.
His quote was "Everybody's got to die of something".

Even if you hide under your bed all day every day,
An earthquake still might come along and crush you under it when the roof caves in.
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Bus Motor Build

What’s That Noise?!?

[Brian]

[nsracing]

Most if not all of the homes now in public housing have all been painted w/ lead-based paints.

Lead made the engines last longer actually. Not very good for drinking water and air contaminations. Imagine how much lead is in our rivers and oceans from lead weights and other things used in recreational and commercial fishing.

Lead-core projectiles...will give you lead-poisoning if you try to rob a home.

[my59]

[SGKent]

and to think I used to hold a piece of solder in my teeth when soldering. No wonder my hair sticks out at funny angles
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“Most people don’t know what they’re doing, and a lot of them are really good at it.” - George Carlin

[oprn]

A couple years back I was expressing my frustration to a friend who is a doctor about the fixation of the modern world on building a "no risk" society and the impossibility of ever reaching that goal with a normal lifestyle. In frustration I said "What are we supposed to do? Stay in bed?"

His reply was "The majority of people die in bed. That doesn't work!"
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We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)

[oprn]

[oprn]

My uncle was a avid upland bird and duck/goose hunter. His wife used to complain bitterly about having to pick the lead shot out of their teeth. He live to be in his late 80's and she died in her 90's.
_________________
We had the stone age, the bronze age, the industrial age and now we are in the age of mass deception and mind control for corporate profit. (The mass media age)