Oil instead of grease?

[byegad]

I used to oil my hubs when I was school kid.

I do remember rivers of dirty oil running down the spokes onto the (steel) rims to improve the effectiveness of my brakes.

Wot he said!

I used to lube my school bikes Sturmey Archer 3 speed hub and the same thing happened, oil everywhere and rear brake useless.

[bumper]

oil everywhere and rear brake useless.

That's what the soles of your shoes were for

[rualexander]

.......
I believe the Rohloff hub relies on oil leaking through the bearings to lubricate them, which gives some confidence in the oil approach given Rohloff's reputation for reliability.

Yes, and Rohloff say that even if all the free oil inside the hub leaks away there will still be sufficient lubricant sticking to the internal gears and bearings etc to allow the hub to function without problems until the next scheduled oil change which is yearly or every 5000km whichever comes first.

[Brucey]

oil everywhere and rear brake useless.

That's what the soles of your shoes were for

I ran an SA hub gear for over 30000 miles on gear oil; once every couple of weeks I added a little and most of it came right out again in the messy form described. I reckon that at any one time there was maybe a teaspoonful in there, tops.

These days I use a specially formulated thixotropic semi-fluid grease (with EP additives, solid lubricants, high base oil viscosity and corrosion inhibitors) in IGH's and I can go up to a year between relubing with no ill effects, despite the fact that the bikes in question stand out in the rain etc. This lube makes the hub run quieter than it did in oil, and isn't noticably more draggy or anything.

In any event the gradual leakage of lube (from older designs of hubs without such good sealing) is not an altogether bad thing since the hub won't go rusty, and wear debris is encouraged out of the hub without having to strip it down. With the oil, leakage was about 10cc per month or something, where with the new lube it is about the same amount in a year, so no braking problems.

BTW if anyone wants some SBX grease or the thixotropic semi-fluid grease I can supply small quantities at cost.

cheers

[Ayesha]

Put oil in your hubs. Your rims won't go rusty.

[Ayesha]

oil everywhere and rear brake useless.

That's what the soles of your shoes were for

I ran an SA hub gear for over 30000 miles on gear oil; once every couple of weeks I added a little and most of it came right out again in the messy form described. I reckon that at any one time there was maybe a teaspoonful in there, tops.

These days I use a specially formulated thixotropic semi-fluid grease (with EP additives, solid lubricants, high base oil viscosity and corrosion inhibitors) in IGH's and I can go up to a year between relubing with no ill effects, despite the fact that the bikes in question stand out in the rain etc. This lube makes the hub run quieter than it did in oil, and isn't noticably more draggy or anything.

In any event the gradual leakage of lube (from older designs of hubs without such good sealing) is not an altogether bad thing since the hub won't go rusty, and wear debris is encouraged out of the hub without having to strip it down. With the oil, leakage was about 10cc per month or something, where with the new lube it is about the same amount in a year, so no braking problems.

BTW if anyone wants some SBX grease or the thixotropic semi-fluid grease I can supply small quantities at cost.

cheers

The amount of oil in a SA hub is ONE full stroke of an olde fashioned 'dib-dib' oil can. Preferably a red olde fashioned dib-dib oil can.

[Ayesha]

A serious cyclist puts 20/50 in a SA hub in summer, and 10/40 in it in winter.
A really serious cyclist uses Castrol Syntrax.

A really serious cyclist put next to no lube in hubs. A free running ball race keeps rolling longer.
All the surfacees that do not come in contact with the balls requires a layer of weatherproofing which could be a thin smear of thick grease, or silicone laquer.
The ball running surfaces will become grease-free in no time due to surface contact of the metal.
Continual use will keep the cups, balls and cones polished.

[Mick F]

Hello all

I appreciate that I am resurrecting an oldish post but it is sort of on subject. As an avid reader of this forum but not much of a contributor, I have followed the various lengthy discussions about grease (and oil). I am nearing the end of my tube of grease (after 15 years or so) and am therefore in the market...

I am not going to discuss the ins and outs of the various options, this has been done here and previously: http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=42374 and http://forum.ctc.org.uk/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=73071 in particular.

Since I can't obtain Castrol SBX (a certain contributor's favourite), I have settled on Mobilith SHC PM 460, a modestly expensive but readily obtainable grease that has met with prior Board Approval. If you are going to try to talk me into something else, better make it convincing!

Blatantly but respectfully copying somebody else's idea, I'll buy a box of 12 cartridges and will happy post the spares to anybody who wants one, at cost. I'm getting them from Southern Lubricants (thanks to them) for £106.55 incl VAT and postage to me, being just under £9 per cartridge.

At current rates of use, that seems good value to me and why shouldn't I treat the bikes to some luxury....?

I'll post something in For Sale, I guess.

With thanks to previous contributors for the idea. I hope that I am not treading on anyone's toes - I hope that you have enough to keep you going anyway!

Dave.

Thank you Dave. Well done.

Excellent grease IMHO but a bit smelly!
I bought two tubes from 531colin when he bought a batch, and I'm most of the way down the first tube already. I am rather liberal with it!

I'll give my used tube a look at how far down it is, and I may buy one off you.

[xcalibur]

I fairly recently bought finish line wet lube and grease with teflon and ceramic to try them out, I have used regular mineral oils which works fine in gear hubs and other old hubs with oil cap, arguably so with grease too. I like the new ones with telfon though, there is something to it, and I have to try the castrol stuff suggestions too. From seeing a lot of used old hubs the last three years (cleaning and lubing old Sturmey and Sachs three speeds; newer seven and eight speeds too) I have come to the conclution the ones that are oiled have an advantage. Except for maybe Rohloff and Alfine they aren't that tight, water seeps in there and when oil easily can be added it sort of stops rust and dissolve a lot of dried up grease and oil. It's odd how some of the old three and five speeds work after years with even major neglect, and the new ones with 7 or more gears go bad after a year or two. They are more complicated but that's not always the reason for failing, mostly it seems to be rust and sometimes sand inside the hub. For some reason the hubs with oil cap generally are in better conditon. Sachs tured to grease sometime in the 60s or early 70 in all their hubs, but these are still mostly in good condition too, even after 20 and 30 years. I think some have added oil through the spindle/axle hole and it might have prevented a lot of trouble later on. The new gear hubs look more water tight, but they are not. The regular bike owner hardly ever thinks of servicing these hubs, and not many repair shops are any good at it. I know Shimano turned to a type of white lithium grease in their nexus hubs, it is suppose to handle winter and contamination better, but if you can fairly easily add two teaspoons of oil any time without picking the hub appart it goes a long way preventing a lot of trouble even if the hub isn't properly cleaned and lubed.

[Brucey]

the problem with putting oil in hubs that are not oil-tight is that you need to keep doing it, which people generally won't do if they weren't doing it before. In bad weather oil can be washed out of bearings in a fairly short period of time and this usually is why more is needed on a regular basis.

The semi-fluid grease I have developed contains corrosion inhibitors and its thixotropic nature means it is fully mobile within the hub (like oil) when in use but doesn't leak out when the bike is standing (like grease). It is thin enough that you can use it in hubs originally meant for oil, despite their weak pawl springs etc. It leaks out so slowly that you just need a shot once a year or so to keep most hubs sweet. Its other additives and high base oil viscosity mean that is a better lubricant than anything else I have ever put into an IGH, too.

Overall, it is infinitely better than most oils, greases, or ad-hoc mixtures thereof.

cheers

[xcalibur]

Semifluid grease might work better, I think the old black stuff Sturmey Archer used to have (still have?) was a bit runny. What stuff is it you have Brucey? ...and yes with oil you have to add some every other week or so, at least a few times a year. The odd thing is that even neglected hubs which only see a drop of oil when things go bad seems to work when oil is added; neglect is far from ideal though . This is not the case with some greased hubs which has had water inside, salty roads, frost and what not for months. When rust appears it eventually stops gears from working and it can be rather difficult to sort out. Rust is something odd though, as soon as a good oil has been added in an old hub, then left to do its' work, it seems to dissolve some how. When the gears are used and sprockets grind towards each other rust sort of dissolve and partly gets flushed out. This happens when oil is added a few times and gears are used. This cleaning effect doesn't happen with grease, and when the owner hesitate to take it to the repair shop before it totally gets bad it can rust up a lot. I think that is why some greased hubs go really bad some times.

The bike shop where I helped used a thick greenish grease from a large bucket for everything, it worked, but personally I found it way to stiff. I don't think I ever saw a trace of speciality grease like the shimano black or white stuff or sturmey archer grease. I actually prefered regular mineral oil with anti rust agents in old hubs to this stuff, it makes shifting easier and generally run smoother. I never got as far as trying possibly better synthetic stuff until lately.

[Brucey]

IIRC sturmey archer have never used a black coloured grease, just a tan coloured one. It is easily overwhelmed by water IME, and has the wrong viscosity properties; it isn't mobile enough in use, which is how rust gets hold inside these hubs. All the hub manufacturers use an inadequate amount of grease inside their hubs too which is another reason they suffer with corrosion when water gets inside.

I agree that oil can help clean crud out of neglected IGHs, but you are left with a mildly abrasive, mildly acidic, rusty sludge inside the hub. Really this needs to be cleaned out, but if not, a superior lubricant (with EP additives, corrosion inhibitors and solid lubricants) will at least better mitigate its harmful effects.

After a year's use on one shot of lube my test hub sounded like it had no lube left in it (noisy pawls) so I didn't know what I'd find when I looked inside. I found that everything was still coated in a film of lubricant and there was no sign of corrosion inside the hub despite all weather use and outside storage etc. When I ran the same hub on oil I know the water used to get inside and was effectively carried out by the oil leakage. This only worked if I both lubed and used the hub very regularly, otherwise corrosion would ensue.

Please forgive me but I've spent several years developing my lubricant so I'm not saying what is in it exactly!

cheers

[xcalibur]

...Please forgive me but I've spent several years developing my lubricant so I'm not saying what is in it exactly!

Can I buy it some where?

[Brucey]

...Please forgive me but I've spent several years developing my lubricant so I'm not saying what is in it exactly!

Can I buy it some where?

I'm happy to supply small quantities at cost; PM me if you want some.

cheers

[123malford]

I wondered whether anyone had ever tried chainsaw oil in their SA AW ? Or even their freewheel ?