On Thu, 04 Mar 2021 09:54:20 +0000, Chris Hogg wrote:

On Thu, 4 Mar 2021 09:41:01 +0000, Clive Arthur
wrote:

On 04/03/2021 00:32, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
Been quite a few scare stories in the press about how E10 petrol -
coming here later this year - will damage many older cars. Much of it
the usual press ********, after all E5 has been around for quite some
time, and is known to attack older 'rubber' flexible fuel pipes. Which
don't last forever anyway. Much of it generalization, but one specific
was mentioned.
It attacks the solder used on carburetter floats (those made of
brass). Any comments?


I'm not a chemist, but as far as I know, Ethanol doesn't attack solder.
However, Acetic Acid (Ethanoic Acid - oxydised Ethanol - vinegar) does
react with Lead and maybe there's some of that present.

The reaction product is Lead Acetate which used to be called 'Sugar of
Lead' because of its sweet taste, and maybe that explains the sweet
smell referred to by Brian Gaff later.

[Lead used to be hung in beer which has gone off to remove the vinegar
and replace it with Sugar of Lead. This is no longer done. Health and
safety gone mad, I say.]

The Romans used 'sugar of lead' to sweeten their wines. Said to be the
underlying cause of the fall of the Roman Empire as they all slowly went
mad and lost their powers of reason.

I always thought the smell of the exhaust of high-performance engines
such as in sports and racing cars at hill climb meetings etc was due to
the use of 'Castrol' somewhere in the fuel mix (whatever Castrol was),
but I'm probably wrong.

Lead in the petrol caused the sweetnes, Castrol was a vegetable oil used
in racing and left a very distinctive smell when burnt.