gas

General help and support for your Lindeman through 2010 John Deere crawler
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gus
2010 crawler
2010 crawler
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gas

Post by gus » Thu Aug 16, 2012 12:45 pm

Seems that the only fuel I can find is premium without any alcohol. The only problem with it is that it's 60 miles from here.

Any additives I might find to prevent damage from the 10% blend?? :cry:

Then there's the nitrogenated?? fuel??

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Lavoy
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Post by Lavoy » Thu Aug 16, 2012 3:06 pm

We have been running ethanol in our crawlers for somewhere over 20 years with no problem, I woulnd't worry about it.
Lavoy
Parts and restoration for antique and late model John Deere crawlers.
Owner and moderator www.jdcrawlers.com

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LarryD
420 crawler
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Post by LarryD » Fri Aug 17, 2012 4:22 am

Lavoy, just wondering.....have you ever had any issues with valve seats burning? I remember that was a concern in automotive engines back when they took the lead out of the gas.

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H-D
430 crawler
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Post by H-D » Fri Aug 17, 2012 3:22 pm

A web site called Pure Gas. org has stations listed by state which sell the non-ethanol fuel. I'm lucky to have 2 within 7miles. I run it in everything which doesn't have the computer smarts for 'all gas fuels'. Gets enough economy improvement to offset the gig in price.

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Lavoy
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Post by Lavoy » Fri Aug 17, 2012 4:14 pm

Valve seat recession is a function of lead, which was pretty much gone by the end of the 70's other than avgas. Any of the rebuilds I do always get hard seats in the head to alleviate this problem.
I have dynoed more crawlers than I can remember that have been personally rebuilt by me. Not that my dyno is not off by a few HP, but running ethanol at stock timing, they have all been within 5% or less as far as HP per given model, and with a little bump in timing, more than a few will run 20% over stock as per my dyno. I expect on a rebuilt 420, 430, or early 440 at minimum to show 32HP on the dyno. They are rated at 25 HP PTO, so as I said, there could be some error in my dyno, but readout has been very consistent between engines.
My best ever was a 420 that I am fairly sure had a high altitude head. Setting carb and timing for maximum power at rated RPM by the dyno, it would consistently yield 37HP on ethanol. Once after a dyno run, I timed it with a degree timing light, and it was at 37 degrees at high idle, so 14 degrees hotter than stock. This crawler performed like it too, was truly a joy to run, but if you really let it pound, you could start to hear some detonation at the lower RPM's, so needless to say, no one but me ever ran it, and I never pulled it down too far for too long. I should note that it also had a brand new water pump, radiator, and updated 6 blade fan. I would never try this on a poor radiator with original fan.
By comparison, my non-rebuilt 430W would never make rated power no matter what I did to it so I always assumed that the dyno must be fairly close.
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Parts and restoration for antique and late model John Deere crawlers.
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