swivel balls...no grease for me thanks

[thixon]

Well,

I pulled apart my bad swivel on saturday. After seeing what was inside, I've decided that (IN MY OPINION) grease is a horible idea for series swivel balls. So, in short, I've changed my mind. No grease for me thanks.

As you can see from the photos, the pitting allowed water in, and it sat for who knows how many decades. Even if you have swivels in great condition, H2O will probably get past them if the truck is dunked. If the swivel is full of grease, then the only way to get the water/mayoniase grease mixture out would be to disassemble, clean, and reasemble. If the swivel is full of 90 wt, all you'd have to do is drain, refill, and you're good. I'm not even mentioning the needle bearings in the shaft u-joint, but i'm sure they'd be trashed.

I did'nt take photos of the rest of the guts, but suffice it to say the railco and lower bearing were all cold welded into place due to the water and rust. It took no less than an hour of beatings with the hammer and heating with the smoke wrence to get the steering arm out of the lower section.

The other side is not as bad, but looks like I'll be assembling parts for a full rebuild on both sides. Oh well.

[brucejohn]

Is that a chunk missing in the upper left side of the swivel ball's edge?

[thixon]

Is that a chunk missing in the upper left side of the swivel ball's edge?

No,
but it is a "chunk" of the sludge that the swivel was full of.

[brucejohn]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I have been wondering about the grease/lube debate. Not having experienced badly leaking balls yet, it is hard for me to see how grease would be a good option.

We'll see what the future holds.

[greenmeanie]

Travis,
I hate to say it but the real root cause is lack of maintenance by the PO. Land Rover + water = lube change at the earliest oportunity no matter what lube you use.

In the case you describe, oil would have been just as bad as grease. Oil floats on top of water so if you have water ingress into the housing and let it sit your swivels and lower bearings will be kaput in just the same way. In theory the CV grease sticks to the parts and to some degree prevents this even with water present and is designed to drain easily for lube changes. From your pictures someone put axle grease or something else less suitable in there.

Note that I am not saying not to change to oil now that you are bringing your truck alive but merely that leaving any housing with water in it will kill the components.

Gregor

[JackIIA]

Great. So just when I'm thinking, "OK that does it" I'll switch back to oil because of Travis' post...Gregor throws a wrench into, and I'm back at square one. Dazed and confused. :sly:

[greenmeanie]

If you want to keep things cheap use oil. CV grease works well too with some minor advantages regarding leaks but simply costs more. The important thing is to keep up with maintenance and you'll be fine either way.

[Jim-ME]

Greenmeanie hit the nail squarely on the head. Poor maintenance is just that. Use grease or oil it's up to you as long as you maintain it.
Jim

[scott]

i use the oil and leaky seals maintenance plan. no need to drain and change, just top 'em of every couple of weeks

[thixon]

Green, I agree that it was definatly a maintenance issue. My point, and I was admittedly unclear, was that oil is just easier to change. In addition, you get the guaranteed penetration into the needle bearings of the the ujoints, and pins. I'm not confident enough in the grease if water gets in long term. I'm more confident in the ability of the oil to penetrate and lube, if I fall down on my maintenance.

Are you sure the grease would drain out well if it was cantaminated with water? Seems like it would be a bear to drain, and possible require dissasembly of the swivel. I have no experience with the one shot grease in a new swivel, and I know you do.

[Les Parker]

To add to the never ending debate, grease does not lubricate the top railco bush and top pin. We've seen enough of the damage caused by free-wheeling hubs not been regularly locked into engage the front axle and thus get the oil in the swivel housing to do its job, for us not to suggest using grease or general use of free wheeling hubs.

[greenmeanie]

Green, I agree that it was definatly a maintenance issue. My point, and I was admittedly unclear, was that oil is just easier to change. In addition, you get the guaranteed penetration into the needle bearings of the the ujoints, and pins. I'm not confident enough in the grease if water gets in long term. I'm more confident in the ability of the oil to penetrate and lube, if I fall down on my maintenance.

Are you sure the grease would drain out well if it was cantaminated with water? Seems like it would be a bear to drain, and possible require dissasembly of the swivel. I have no experience with the one shot grease in a new swivel, and I know you do.

The CV grease is thin oily stuff and not at all like axle grease etc. You probably encountered the stuff coming out the front 1/2 shaft boots on your allroad if that jogs any memories.

Once you've run a UJ spinning at approx. 700rpm in there it goes everywhere and pretty much becomes fluid. A run round the block to warm it up and the stuff drains out like oil. Even with water its no worse than the mayo you get with oil. Of course, if you plan on wading oil is more attractive for cost reasons.

I rebuilt my front axle years ago and have run oil or grease as took my fancy ever since. I do not run FWH but have put 10s of thousands of miles on it since and have seen no significant wear yet. Maintenance has a far greater bearing on component life than the whole oil/grease debate.

[Sputnicker]

I've been following this swivel-lube debate with great interest as it was my turn to do swivels. First, I bought a tube of the AllMakes swivel grease to put in a leaky steering box. I was surprised to discover that it was only slightly thicker than gear oil, but enough thicker that my steering box doesn't leak any more - not yet anyway. I'd say it flows about like ketchup. So when I finally did the swivels (finished a few days ago), I went with the grease. Part of my rationale is that my Rover lives in the arid Southwest and stream crossings are rare. I also think that it wouldn't be that difficult to drain the grease, if you had to. Worst case is you might have to pressurize the fill-hole slightly with compressed air to speed things up.

[thixon]

Alright Gregor,

You may have talked me back into it. Whatever was in my bad swivell was extremely viscus, like axle grease. I need to think on it some more, but as usual, you've made some very valid points. If it can still flow, I'm not as worried. Mostly, I'm just ticked that I now have to rebuild the swivels. I was hoping to avoid that little expense at least for a while!

[greenmeanie]

Travis,
I would view it like this. If you plan on a rebuild but keeping the existing swivel balls then I would use grease because I seam to remember you saying the surface was not in its first youth but quite salvageable. The grease will keep things lubed with minimal leakage. I would call that my budget build solution which should run for years without issues.

If you plan on doing a rebuild with brand new balls then you may as well save money by using oil to offset the cost of the new chrome.

Now, I'm off to confuse people on another subject.

[JackIIA]

Gregor - a little confusion is better than my blissful ignorance. :thumb-up:

[martindktm]

What about the semi-liquid grease that is used in the snowthrower front little grearbox? It almost already have the texture of ketchup. Maybe that type of stuff would be good..?

[LaneRover]

Has anyone ever thought about using a combo of the two? Would they just combine within a few miles or would there be a thicker section that helps keep the leaks down and a thinner section that keeps the top stuff lubricated?

[thixon]

Has anyone ever thought about using a combo of the two? Would they just combine within a few miles or would there be a thicker section that helps keep the leaks down and a thinner section that keeps the top stuff lubricated?

Hi Lane,

I've read a couple posts on UK board where some have tried a mixture of axle grease and 90 wt. Sounds interesting enough.