Practically Classics Forum

With the old girl hopefully nearing a return to the road I'm thinking ahead about fuel due to reading several stories concerning problems caused by modern fuels. I know the car would run OK on super unleaded and with having hardened valve seats I have no worries there. The problems seem to come from the tank lining getting stripped by the ethanol in the modern fuels clogging up fuel lines. Now, there is a garage not too far from me that still sells 4* but at ~ £1.70 a litre it aint cheap! Does anyone run their car on a mixture of 4*/unleaded/additive without a problem?

This seems to be a problem that Rootes cars particularly suffer and I don't think there's much you can do about it. I don't think its got anything to do with the newly arriving Ethanol content as it happened to me when I bought my early Arrow estate five years ago. The car had been barely used for quite some years and the fuel tank paint started falling off soon after I got it, blocking the system within a few months. I had to remove the tank and clean it out but once I'd done that I had no more problems.

Fuel at the moment contains a maximum of 5% ethanol, but it is added at the oil terminal and different terminal operators have different policies. In this neck of the woods, Super unleaded has no ethanol. You can use an additive but additives only protect against corrosion, not the higher volatility or the tendency to rot rubber. FBHVC has more information http://fbhvc.co.uk/legislation-and-fuel ... formation/