Cletrac.org

Hello
I have a oc3 that I believe has a diffeerent style of grease nipple.  Looks like a button instead of the usual grease nipple.  I read another post on here that states they should be oiled.  My origional post was going to ask what type of grease gun fitting I need.  Now I am confused!  I drilled the center out of a bolt and installed the standard size grease nipple.  It is a pain taking them out one by one to grease this way.  Should I be using oil or grease?  What do I need?  Where can I get one?

Thanks
Murray

I am going to ask some questions first, however Cletrac recommended oil. Now with that being said I am going to ask you these questions: Where do you live? Grease is not good in cold climate conditions. Next do you farm? Cletrac has not published a book in 40 plus years and things have changed. The availability of the correct fitting was discusssed on here several years ago. Answer that and I will make my next statement.

Thanks for the reply John

No I do not farm.  I have 5 acres in Central Manitoba, Canada.  Cold weather for sure.  Maybe I will take a photo of what I have on there and learn how to post it.  Can't do that until tomorrow, lights are fading right now.  I use this crawler for snow removal, pulling cars around and a little wood out of the bush.

Thanks again'
Murray

Murray--Just went through all this with my restoration.  If you disect a roller you will see why oil is best.  Holes that allow lubricant to flow freely could easily plug with grease.
I got buttonhead fittings from Brown Supply (brownsupply@verizon.net),  great place to do business, the oil guns can be purchased from Zimmerman Oliver-Cletrac or from Alemite, and I used a light weight gear lub--I think about 70 weight.  Hope this helps.

In other disscusions on this topic I recall that it was important to choose an oil with no hypoid or high preassure additve.The additves are supposed to be bad for any copper or brass components such as bushings.Any other light on this? I would appreciate knowing as well.

According to a retired Mobil lube engineer, the additives only create problems at engine temperatures or above.
Harbor Freight sells a pneumatic grease gun for about 20 bucks. You have to turn over the rubber piston in the barrel, and it may still get a little messy, but that's why God invented rags and rubber gloves. (Harbor Freight sells these, too )

Cletrac recommends SAE 50 wt non-detergent motor oil for use in the upper and lower track wheels, idlers, final drives and transmissions. Ray Zimmerman has done some research and found an equivalent gear oil that will work too.

I've been using the 50 wt that I can get in 5 gallon pails.

Blake

Thanks to all for the help.  I guess I can start cleaning out the grease.  I have an instruction manual ordered so I don't make to many more mistakes.

Thanks again
Murray

This is probably a little late, but I bought a $13 grease gun from a NAPA Auto Parts Store, Replaced the straight pipe with the hose and grease fitting, that my son got me.  He's a truck Mechanic and they use the same type on the trucks he works on.

The grease gun worked great, with no other modifications.  Much better than spending $150 for an Oil Gun.  It is a little messy to fill, so I plan to drill and tap a suction port with a valve and the original grease tube so I can suction out of a can instead of opening it up to re-fill.

Quote from: Blake Malkamaki on March 07, 2007, 11:28:00 PM
Cletrac recommends SAE 50 wt non-detergent motor oil for use in the upper and lower track wheels, idlers, final drives and transmissions. Ray Zimmerman has done some research and found an equivalent gear oil that will work too.

I've been using the 50 wt that I can get in 5 gallon pails.

Blake

From the BG Products web page, "There?s a common misconception that crankcase oil and gear oil share the same numerical nomenclature (i.e. 20W-50 and 75W-90). What?s worse, standard OEM manuals further the confusion by specifying grades of crankcase oils for gear oil applications. The information gap is an industry-wide problem. However, knowing how to use a viscosity classification chart, can keep you from getting lost in translation."  http://www.bgprod.com/blendr/viscosity.html

Also note that Permatex makes a different gasket-maker for applications exposed to gear oil because the additives "eat" the gasket-maker for engine applications ("gear oil has friction modifiers that break down normal RTV and cause leaking"). http://www.permatex.com/products/Automotive/automotive_gasketing/gasket_makers/permatex_gear_oil_rtv_sealant.htm

All that tells me that putting modern gear oil in the rollers should be done with reservations. I don't know if the additives would impact the life of the Oliver seals or not.

I haven't found 50W ND motor oil locally yet. Lubriplate makes it ($40 case + shipping) but so far I'm afraid to ask what it costs to send a case of oil FedEx.  What did you find, Blake? 

I've posted this before but it might be helpful again. I bought this about a year ago at NAPA, You should be able to present them with the part number "65-205" and order it if they don't have it in stock. Sometimes the 50 wt non-detergent motor oil is easier to locate but both work in all components of the crawler.

(http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL83/533924/8893166/397826753.jpg)

Hello everyone,

Just a quick reminder to those of you rebuilding, cleaning up and/or just resealing your track rollers. Put the seals in backwards. This is very important. When you fill the rollers with the 50 wt lube the lube needs to be able to "exit" the roller as you fill. It the seals are put in to "hold" the oil in the roller you will blow out the seals when you fill them.

Jim Leap
HG 68
HG 42

The last 5 gallon pail of 50 wt NT motor oil I bought was from Bayless Fuel Service in Titusville, PA. 814.827.3336. It came in a yellow pail with the name EMBLEM from United Refinery in Warren, Pa. It's been a couple years so I am not sure if they are getting the same oil since I recently heard West Penn Oil http://www.westpenn.com/motoroils.html (http://www.westpenn.com/motoroils.html) in Warren was no longer carrying it. But if you go to West Penn's web site it shows they have 50 wt NT motor oil.

Now Bob Burkhouse lives in near Bradford where American Refining Group http://www.amref.com/ (http://www.amref.com/) has their refinery. He may be able to check on the availability of the non detergent motor oil there?

Using the gear oil may be ok if it is basic refined oil with no friction modifiers. Friction additives are going to have bad effects on Cletrac steering because the steering relies on friction to slow or stop the drums in the controlled differential steering.

Blake

Quote from: Bruce_Bouton on January 01, 2012, 06:52:10 PMWhat did you find, Blake? 

API GL-1 90 WT alternative. Excuse the yellow tint, my scanner did this for some reason.  ???
Also note: viscosity versus region temperature.

(http://pic20.picturetrail.com/VOL83/533924/8893166/400347097.jpg)

Little different spec in the OC-3 manual ... SAE 40 for 32F to 70F, SAE 140 straight mineral gear oil above 70F.

I found an oil products distribution company about 5 miles from me that lists mineral oil as one of their products. I'll give them a call tomorrow.


Thank you for sharing what you all have already learned.

I got some "Ford tractor transmission fluid" It's the same stuff,used it in the rear end and the rollers on my DDH
GL1 is available,not sure if it's the cheapest or not.

New twist in the oil discussion ... diesel engine oil. I talked to a wholesale supplier tech-support yesterday, and I just got off the phone with the Conoco /Kendell tech support line. I read the specs to him and explained the vehicle, including bronze / brass & leather parts. He went to his engineers and called me back a couple hours later. They recommend diesel engine oil for the track & transmission ... everywhere except where the steering bands are.  Their products are PowerD (Conoco), TSX (76), Super 2 (Phillips) and Super D3 (Kendall). The diesel oil won't affect the bronze or leather parts, but has superior lubrication capabilities compared to mineral oil.

I didn't write down the exact numbers but he explained how a 20W-50 SAE engine oil overlaps the 95W mineral oil for "viscosity". I guess the ratings are different scale.

http://www.enerquip.com.au/msds/conoco-hydroclear-power-d-engine-oil-multigrade.pdf   conoco

http://www.conocophillipslubricants.com/documents/kendall/fleet_commercial_engine_oils/Ken%20Super-D%203%20Multigrades%20TDS%20Web.pdf  Kendall

I asked the distributor about using non detergent in the engine .... something i thought we were supposed to do but didn't know why. He suggested that didn't make sense. The detergent will help get the dirt to the filter. They used ND oils "back then" because that's all there was really. He said the real spec to look out for was the GL number. GL 1 through 4 would be OK, but GL5 could be harmful to OEM seals from that era. he said when current oil technology was introduced there was some damage to older equipment. "Detergent" was prominent on the label so that got the blame, when the real culprit was sulfur and potassium (covered under the GL number).

I know some of you have strong opinions on one oil or the other and i'm no expert. I'm sharing what I learned today. Unless one of you yell "heck no and here's why" I think I'll give the diesel oil a try. It's readily available, and should be a better lubricant than straight mineral oil.

Working on this Oliver has been a real journey, and it's just started.

I always use detergent oil in tractor engines. Unless I want to be able to run it when it's really cold out, I use 15W-40 in just about everything - diesel or gas.

I used to use the Kendall Super D3 that you mention, but that was back when Kendall was made in Bradford from Pennsylvania Grade Crude Oil. I think Sunoco bought Kendall and it's now made from other crude oil, so I avoid it. I avoid Pennzoil and Quaker State as well since they are no longer made here since they were sold out to Shell.

My Cletrac E has 50 wt diesel engine oil in the transmission. I put that in there years ago before I knew I was supposed to use non-detergent, but it works ok, so I left it.

For lower track wheels and transmissions I see no need for a detergent oil as there is no filtering system to remove any impurities that the detergent holds in suspension.

Just some points of discussion. Others may have other ideas.

Blake