On 04/03/2021 09:54, 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.

That was Castrol R, a castor oil based lubricant that was reckoned to
give slightly lower friction than mineral oil lubricants. This is where
the name "Castrol" came from, although their main products Castrolite
and XP were mineral oil. Some cafe racers in the old days used to add a
tablespoon of Castrol R to each tank of petrol to fake that exhaust smell.