tl;dr: I need mechanics who had their apprenticeship back then to answer me the question if people knew already back in the 50s and 60s that lead protected valve seats. Or were only the octane raising properties known?
My problem is the following:
There is a Youtuber called the Dirty Garage guy and I was having a discussion with him. After many insults by him I tried to get my point across which is the following: He criticized Driving 4 Answers another big Youtuber who he accuses of copy pasting a lot of his videos based on Wiki articles and presenting him as an expert when he is not. I'm not here to defend his approach to making videos because I'm sure there are things you can criticize and he also made good points which I have also told him. Most of what he criticizes are fair points. I just disagreed about the following:
In one of D4As videos he goes into leaded fuels and its use. He says that " back in the 50s and 60s the only way we could get valve seats to not fail very quickly was to put lead in the fuel" at 02:58 (I will include all necessary links to the videos). Now the point of contention is exactly that quote. Matt (who is the guy from the Dirty Garage Guy channel) claims he is talking nonsense and that firstly he is using the wrong term saying that valve recession would not be the correct term but valve seat erosion would and secondly that lead was first only added to raise the octance level. What I think happend was a misunderstanding. D4A never addresses leads first addition to fuel which was in the 1920s but is talking about the state of knowledge and its role in the 50s while Matt assumes that D4A is suggesting that the protective qualities of lead were discovered already in the 20s and not much later (which admittedly would be wrong). I just think he misunderstood him. I understood that he was just talking about the general things lead was known to be good for in the 50s and 60s which also would include valve protection. Now I did find quite a few papers that use that exact expression of valve seat recession and referenced it which prompted him to attack me and call me fraud among other things (you can see the exchange in the comments under my nickname EbonyPope). I made quite clear that I do not take issue with his critiques but more the personal insults he likes to use.
Not only did I find many papers using that exact term he took issue with I also was told by an old mechanic on another question and answer site that by the 50s and 60s people in the industry were very well aware that lead also protects valve seats. Matt though claims that only in the 70s was this discovered since SOME valve seats (not all) of SOME car models were failing and that is why we know of the protective properties of lead. I however found an article by Bob Visser a guy who worked for Shell-Oil and apparently was involved in aviation fuel who says that he knew about the protective properties of lead in the 60s and even observed some of the fuel testing in the 60s and knew about it. Matt then called me a fraud an told me that he highly doubts that this guy could have known that back then.
I referenced a website by Bob Visser who was fuel expert for Shell-Oil where he goes into exactly that myth that some people believe that valves were never protected by lead and that it all is just another lie due to people spreading that false belief. According to his article "MythBusters: Does lead have any effect on valve life?" he observed some of those tests and is absolutely adamant that people knew it even back then. So I really need people who either had their apprenticeship back then in the 50s and 60s or someone who knows someone who can tell me if I'm right or not. I need this as something I can reference if he still doubts my claims.
D4As video about rotary valves and leaded fuels (Claim in question is at 02:50): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZU8tsNNxGA
Dirty Garage Guy (Matt's response approx at 17:50) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vsMjP3-_bVg&t=1097s
Bob Visser's article about leaded fuels: https://generalaviationnews.com/2008/02/22/mythbusters-does-lead-have-any-effect-on-valve-life/
One of the papers using the term "valve seat recession" (I have several more): https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/861550/
