Everyone blames E10 for carb issues - its amazing that back in the good old days every gas station was a service station because carbs were needed to be adjusted, cleaned, etc all the time with straight gas. The basic fact is if it sits for weeks, months on end - it will gum up if you don't treat it with Stabile. Otherwise the big issue is E10 will clean your dirty fuel system and sometimes the fuel pump can't handle it or the fuel filter will clog. The smaller the carb/engine the quicker it will gum up. I had a 15HP generator that I treated the gas with stabile and a little Sea Foam. It sat all winter - no ice storm. Pulled out that summer fired it, added some more stabile and a little more Seafoam and put it back in the garage. Went three years that way with the same fuel because I never needed a generator. The 4th summer I drained the gas and poured it into my tractor (about 4 gallon) and it never missed a beat. Refilled with fresh gas and started over. Its getting to year 3 this year on that tank of fuel.
I hear the old wives tales about E10 will ruin gaskets but I've never seen it. I run it in everything from a 1964 F600 with a 300 6 to my wife's 2020 Kia Sedona. From the 50+ year old cub cadet to a brand new Echo chain saw. The only issues I did have were my weed eater fuel line shrunk to 1/3 the original size for some reason when it was stored for the winter. Stabile? Seafoam E10? Or cheap Chinese rubber used by Poulin?
And no - a low compression tractor engine does not need premium fuel. In 1970 fuel companies sold gas based on the RON octane rating (Research octane Rating) - that's why you could buy 100+ octane rated fuel. The other method is the MON octane rating (Motor octane) that rating was never advertised for fuel sold retail - because the number was 10-15 points lower. Today most fuels are sold using a combination of the 2 divided by 2 - you'll see it on the gas pump Octane rating (R+M)/2. Buying 87 octane today would be like buying 92-93 octane in 1970. Good chance your manual from a 1970 tractor advises you to use 90-92 octane using the RON method - which would have been about the lowest grade fuel in 1970 available at the typical gas pump. They didn't want you to buy some super cheap fuel with a low octane (I have no idea where such a fuel would be purchased) but in 1970 fuel octane ratings 10-20 years earlier were much lower - if you had a huge fuel barrel that you never tapped and was 10-15 years old they didn't want you to use it in your new tractor.
A lot of 1940s gas was only 79-85 octane using the RON method (fuel wasn't nearly as standardized as it is now)- but compression levels were so low it didn't matter. With the variance in octane levels and fuel additives many people developed a favorite gas for their car convinced that Shell/Sunaco/Esso gas was so much better than XYZ down the street. And it was probably true given there was no standardized ratings. That 79-85 octane rating would only make 72-78 using the current method. And that is was the old Ford 8Ns, Farmall Hs&Ms&cubs, and Johny poppers ran on for thousands of hours.
In the late 1950s regular fuel octane had risen to about 90 RON and the super premiums were 98-99 RON octane. With the development of the overhead valve engine and higher compression ratios the fuel of the 1940s wouldn't work.
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Today's Featured Article - Restoration Story: Fordson Major - by Anthony West. George bought his Fordson Major from a an implement sale about 18 years ago for £200.00 (UK). There is no known history regarding its origins or what service it had done, but the following work was undertaken alone to bring it up to show standard. From the engine number, it was found that this Major was produced late 1946. It was almost complete but had various parts that would definitely need replacing.
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