I can only speak for California, Unleaded became widely available in the mid
70's in California. Leaded regular
was available in many parts of Ca. as late as 4 years ago. I believe leaded is
still available for off highway use
(farm equipment mainly). One thing that was done was that the amount of lead in
the leaded fuels was reduced
over time so that at the end leaded only had a fraction of the lead content of
the '60's fuels. To my limited
knowledge, '60's Triumphs did not have the hardened seats or Si/bronze valve
guides that make older engines
live with unleaded.
Also note, emissions regulations were starting to come into force in '67 and
Triumph as well as other foreign car
makers were having to build engines to meet those standards.
I know that the elimination of leaded fuel in the UK is a big issue with
classic car owners, however, if
you realize that we have been living with unleaded for many years over here I
think you can see that the technical
problems have long been solved. Although this is no consolation if you have to
pull the head on your TR and have
extensive/expensive work done to it for no other reason.
The unleaded gasoline today does not present the classic car owner with as many
problems as before. The additives
in the fuel do much of the job that lead used to do. The general advice I hear
these days is that if you own a car designed
to run on leaded, that you can safely run it on unleaded if it is used for
"normal driving" as opposed to high performance
driving or heavy duty tasks such as towing. Of course if all you do with your
Triumph is "normal driving" maybe you
should own a Honda instead.
One last bit, California is sort of a test bed for all these emission regs and
one of the latest things we've had to deal with
is "reformulated gasoline". This fuel just by its composition burns cleaner and
produces lower emissions, the downside
is that it has a component which over time attacks the synthetic rubber used in
fuel lines up until recently. Needless to
say there has been an increase in engine fires. It also has a very nasty
chemical called MBTE which does not break
down and causes cancer.
|