Grease advice

[TRM]

Hi All,

I'll soon be building up a new bike from scratch, frame and wheels, the whole shebang, as such i want to do things right.

I've been looking through the "right Grease" thread and notice CJ amongst others spoke highly of Mobilith SCHPM-460,
https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?t=42374&start=30

I've managed to find some Mobilith SCH-460 on ebay, however it is not the PM version (which from the mobil site appears to stand for Paper Mill as thats what they suggest it is used for) for a reasonable, but still much more than average bike grease, price

on the Mobil website it does still say that the SCH-460 is still offers good corrosion protection, however i cant find out what additive makes the PM version better, and whether without it it's still worth purchasing.

Does anyone have any ideas on whether this is still a good grease for bikes?

Thanks

TRM

[Brucey]

it is, but it is not the only good grease, and depending on the exact use you put it to, there may be better ones.

cheers

[alexnharvey]

Are you looking at the red 460 marine grease?

[TRM]

it is, but it is not the only good grease, and depending on the exact use you put it to, there may be better ones.

Thanks Brucey. Generally it will be used on bearings. Hub cup and cone, and headset bearings on new and current bikes.
For assemble (threads, etc..) i generally use a cheap marine grease i got a big pot of just to prevent seizing.

Are you looking at the red 460 marine grease?

Yup that's the one, not bad value considering from places like oil-store one must buy a minimum of 12x338g for around £130 inc.VAT (although they do have the PM version)

Thanks

[alexnharvey]

I wasn't able to determine how that overlaps with 460pm as they no longer seem to list the 460 marine. I thought that both will have 460cst synthetic oil bases but could differ in other respects.

I am interested in trying amsoil polymeric synthetic off road grease with moly, a calcium sulphonate thickened grease. Although Brucey cautions me against my technical spec sheet based grease selection method, I thought this met many of the points in those older discussions of grease where 460pm was selected. It has the advantage of being available in single cartridges at a reasonable price! http://www.performanceoilsltd.co.uk/ams ... rease.html

[Airsporter1st]

This -

https://www.nanoslicklubricants.com/services/cycling-lubricants/

- is what I'd like to get, but I cannot find anywhere that sells it in UK or Europe.

[alexnharvey]

Why, because of the WS2? I don't think that's sufficient to make it worth the effort.

[Airsporter1st]

Why, because of the WS2? I don't think that's sufficient to make it worth the effort.

Not just the WS2, (which may only be present in limited quantity) but the whole package:

-Patented synthetic NLGI Grade 2, heavy-duty, multi-purpose lubricant with addition of PTFE micro powders
-Lowest coefficient of friction – 0.03%, unmatched by either Graphite, Teflon or Molybdenum Disulfide (MolyB)
-Rust Inhibiting Properties
-Corrosion Inhibitors
-Temperature Resistance from -45ºF to 450ºF
-Load Bearing Capability is Extremely High at 300,000PSI
-Tungsten adheres at a molecular level creating an extremely resilient bond
-Polymers prevents washout and water emulsification

[alexnharvey]

Which of those do you think are special?

Just normal grease attributes described in hyperbole for the unwary cyclist.

[Airsporter1st]

Which of those do you think are special?

Just normal grease attributes described in hyperbole for the unwary cyclist.

Thanks for the insight. I take it you don’t know where to buy it in Europe?

[Brucey]

Almost any grease spec sheet can read well if it is worded right. Any grease is better than stuff-all grease too, and stuff-all grease is what you find in most bike parts, so arguably you literally can't go wrong! However if you want to get 'the best grease', you need to focus on what is really important and which would be a 'nice to have'. One way of looking at this is to look at what causes the components of interest to fail. In many bike parts it is

1) the weather getting in
2) bad adjustment
3) contamination

Taking these in turn;

- the grease needs to be able to resist the weather. Unfortunately 'the weather' includes not just rain but contamination with road salt, and most greases just break down in the presence of salty water. Basically there can't be a high enough content of corrosion inhibitors to resist the worst conditions that might occur on a bicycle. The other thing is that if the parts have seals, the lubricant has to be able to form and maintain a film in the seals, else the weather will get in. The lubricant either needs to be 100% impervious to the environment and to persist, uncontaminated, in the seals (which IMHO is impossible), or be renewed by some servicing operation, or be replenished from within.

- nothing will save a really badly adjusted hub or headset but a better grease will give you a little more leeway at least and may prolong the life of bearings which are not quite up to the job. It is nice to a high pressure rating in the lubricant, but it is (if measured at high speeds) arguably a waste of time; the most highly loaded bearings on a bike spend most of their time going so slowly that the lubricant film will be breached in most cases. Some very special greases resist this sort of thing better than others (see previous threads) and it is an ongoing topic of research. But in the simplest terms (of things that you will find for sale) what will be most likely to do most good here in bicycle parts is the presence of solid lubricants.

- ideally the bearing ought to consist of shiny metal parts, lubricant, and nothing else. Rather a lot of what is dismissed as 'wear' is actually erosion (corrosion assisted wear) and wouldn't have happened if only the corrosion inhibitors in the lubricant had been any good. Actual situations where particles of foreign matter (dirt or wear debris) are exclusively responsible for a cascade of increasing wear are relatively few, and in most of those the kiss of death has been administered some other way (like corrosion or bad adjustment) beforehand and all you can do is to maybe slow it down. If you have solid lubricants and EP additives present this inhibits the wear mechanisms that are operative when the lubricant film is breached; it will always be breached for at least some of the time so you need these in your grease.

There is (for bicycle applications) very little downside in having lots of solid lubricants in your grease. However in other applications it interferes with rolling element bearings which are turning at high speed and it (of course) causes the grease to be more expensive than it might be otherwise.

Regarding corrosion inhibitors; nearly all greases make some claims in this regard but few are really proven. Same goes for low speed high load operation. One of the few ways you can tell if a grease is really up to foul conditions is to look at the manufacturer-specific approvals for that grease; if it is recommended for the harshest conditions imaginable (eg exposed gear trains, exposed bearings etc operating at high loads and low speeds) by the manufacturer of those parts then there it is a pretty fair bet that the grease is really suitable for those conditions.

I confess I am a little sceptical of the relevance of salt water spray tests for assessing the performance of greases against corrosion in bicycle applications; IME some of the worst damage (both chemically and physically) occurs when the bearing is stationary through corrosion and this may take weeks to occur. An accelerated test which takes a few days and is in constant motion does not give the chance for real evil (i.e. all the corrosion inhibitors to be consumed, or the thickeners to be degraded by the now highly acidic conditions etc) to occur.


Thus if you have a choice between a grease that (whatever blandishments might exist in the spec sheet) is also suitable for high speed ball bearings and one that is (say) meant for a crane slewing ring bearing I'd -without the slightest hesitation- choose the latter every time for use in a bicycle bearing.

In a part that has seals in it, I'd use a semi-fluid grease based on the same chemistry/additives as that grease simply because it will keep the seal lips wetted. In most bicycle parts there is a large enough void within the part to hold a fair quantity of lubricant, so that some slight leakage (which flushes contaminants out of the seals and helps to stop corrosion externally) is tolerated.

A very few parts can be filled with (say) gear oil and it won't leak out; SKF sealed BB bearings work more or less like this. Most front hubs don't (if they are adjusted correcty) need any better lubricant than that either, so you can experiment (ideally with a new hub that doesn't yet have worn seals) with using oil alone as a lubricant; you will soon find out if you need something thicker like a SFG (Semi Fluid grease) instead.

A note of caution is concerning rubber seals; in some cases certain synthetic oils and certain additives will cause rubber seals to degrade where with other lubricants they would be OK. Since you won't know what your seals are made of nor exactly what is in your lubricant, it is almost pot luck.

A final comment is that you can usually get away with using basically poor lubricants provided they are replaced often enough and everything else is in your favour; thus if you have grease nipple on a hub or headset, the bearing is adjusted correctly and you use a grease gun on the nipple often enough, the part will often last almost indefinitely, regardless of the grease used. As I started out saying, anything is better than nothing; beyond that, grease which is degraded or badly contaminated is potentially as bad as nothing....

cheers

[alexnharvey]

Which of those do you think are special?

Just normal grease attributes described in hyperbole for the unwary cyclist.

Thanks for the insight. I take it you don’t know where to buy it in Europe?

You're welcome. I've wasted plenty of time looking for American market greases. I hope you have better luck and suggest you'd be better off just buying a similar grease with MoS2 rather than WS2. You might even find one in this thread. Not patented though

[mig]

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Shell-Lubricants-400G-Gadus-S2-V220-2-Grease/132592343146?_trkparms=aid%3D555017%26algo%3DPL.CASSINI%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D55148%26meid%3D52f3cfc1c9964e80a2a44d647971a6fa%26pid%3D100505%26rk%3D1%26rkt%3D1%26%26itm%3D132592343146&_trksid=p2045573.c100505.m3226