Your friend's 1978 Windsor would from the factory, have had induction hardened exhaust valve seats - designed to operate with non-lead fuel. Ford converted to hardened seats on the Cleveland, Lima and Windsor engine production lines in the early part of 1970. I dug out my copy of an article in Metal Progress magazine, 1973 issue, which detailed the hardening process.
Also included in the article is a graph of Fords durability tests (high speed and load) showing an exhaust valve seat recession of 0.080" in 10,000 miles with conventional seat material hardness and non lead fuel - hence the justification for hardened seats. The same test conducted out to 50,000 miles confirmed the hardened seats on non-leaded fuel had less exhaust valve seat recession than the conventional seats on leaded fuel. Exhaust valve seat recession is due to locailized welding at asperities due to high unit loading. The lead in the fuel provided a thin protective film that prevented the welding and resultant wear. The hardened seat material works without the need for lead since the hardened cast iron (martensitic structure) is much stronger and better able to resist the welding/wear.
Several things to note here: 1) these were cast iron engines and did not use separate valve seat inserts, 2) the durability test was high speed and load designed to turn on the problem, 3) Engines that do not operate at high speed and load as in tractor engines, are unlikely to be subject to significant exhaust valve seat recession, 4) engines using separate valve seat inserts may not be subject to exhaust valve seat recession depending on the material used.
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Today's Featured Article - History of the Cockshutt Tractor - by Danny Bowes (Dsl). The son of a very successful Toronto and Brantford, Ontario merchant, and himself quite an entreprenuer, James G. Cockshutt opened a business called the Brantford Plow Works in 1877. In 1882, the business was incorporated to become the Cockshutt Plow Company. Along with quality built equipment, expedious demand and expansion made Cockshutt Plow Works the leader in the tillage tools sector of the farm equipment industry by the 1920's.
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