[TR] Valve seats

[Greg Lemon]

I never heard about the adoption of hardened valve seats early on for
Triumph or other imports.  Word on the street in the 80s was we needed to
get hardened valve seats, find leaded fuel, or run an additive in our fuel
for our sixties and early seventies cast iron head  British cars.

I remember using some kind of lead additive/octane booster in my daily
drivers at that time, don't know if it made any difference.

Since then I have had many hobby cars and many thousands of miles of use
with no lead or additives and no problems.

Greg Lemon
68 TR250

On Wed, Oct 23, 2024, 11:36 AM Don Hiscock <don.hiscock at gmail.com> wrote:

> I’ve never heard that bit about satellite seats, John, but it’s certainly
> possible.
>
> My recollection is that unleaded fuel first started becoming available in
> America circa 1973-75 and it became dominant in the 1980s. It’s hard to
> imagine engineering changes by the British motor industry being made in the
> 1960s for unleaded gasoline in the USA. Later on, perhaps.
>
> On Wednesday, October 23, 2024, John Macartney <johnbmacartney at gmx.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Does anyone out there have documentary evidence (in the form of Service
>> Bulletins issued by the factory or Leona NJ) that makes specific mention of
>> the introduction of stellite valve seats in place of earlier and softer
>> alternatives? I do recall BMC making something of a hoo-haa about stellite
>> seats being used in the MGB and Healey 3000 back in the sixties. Same
>> applied to Rootes Group and Jaguar.
>> There is hearsay in the UK that hardened seats went into heads for the US
>> market at about the same time because of the introduction of unleaded fuel.
>> That hearsay also suggests hardened seats were territory specific but from
>> an ease of production standpoint, having two different types of seat during
>> machining and manufacture just doesn’t make sense. I can think of other
>> examples where Standard-Triumph adopted a “one type fits all” applied and
>> that goes for other British makes.
>> It’s clear that valve seat recession fears in Europe has been a kneejerk
>> reaction to a problem that never really existed which suggests stellite
>> valve seats were fitted for all markets. An engineering or service bulletin
>> back in the day would have confirmed this but I never remember seeing one.
>> Thoughts anyone?
>>
>> Jonmac
>> ** triumphs at autox.team.net **
>>
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