[Steam-engine] Oilers for Crosshead slides

Richard Strobel Richard_Strobel7 at msn.com
Tue Jun 28 06:20:38 PDT 2005


Thanks Andy and James for taking the time to educate us.   We appreciate it.

Sincerely
RickinMt. with Cork on the side


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "James Mackessy" <jmackess at twcny.rr.com>
To: "Steam-engine mailing list" <steam-engine at lists.stationary-engine.com>
Sent: Monday, June 27, 2005 9:36 AM
Subject: Re: [Steam-engine] Oilers for Crosshead slides


> Rick;
>    Looks gorgeous so far! From what I can see, you may have a choice for
> crosshead
> slipper lubrication. Is that rod going down into the base from the 
> crosshead
> driving an
> oil pump? On the Troy-Engburgs, this pump fills a reservoir mounted on the
> upper part of
> the engine, and from there the oil is piped to all the lube points in 
> copper
> tubing. Each
> lube point has a needle valve and drip window on the bottom of the
> reservoir. This may
> have been how the engine was set up originally, but an oiler on each side 
> of
> the frame will
> work just as well and might have just a little more "eye appeal". These
> types of engines
> usually did blower duty or similar "non-glorious" tasks, and therefore the
> manufacturers
> made an effort to make them easy to maintain and resistant to the effects 
> of
> neglect, as
> far as possible. That's why the central lube system instead of individual
> oilers became
> the norm. As far as oil, originally you would have used an oil such as DTE
> oil medium
> or DTE oil heavy medium. The former is an ISO 46, the latter ISO 68, both
> are Mobil
> callouts, descended from the old Vacuum Oil Company products back in the
> twenties.
> You can usually find the hydraulic versions of these, DTE 25 and DTE 26, 
> in
> five gallon
> pails. They have some extra anti-wear and anti-foaming additives, but work
> just fine. If
> you prefer the simple life, SAE 20 will work fine too.  The cylinder, of
> course, gets steam
> oil through the cylinder lubricator pump or a displacement lubricator. 
> Most
> guys use a
> 600W.  If you are fussy about what oil you use, Mobil is the traditional
> favorite, but
> Conoco has come out with a series of "Hydro-cracked" oils that are so
> well-refined as
> to be "eye clear" in an oiler. We will probably use one or the other in 
> our
> big Corliss, as
> the oil is filtered and recirculated, and used for a long time.
>      One word of caution if you find original literature and it calls out
> oils by name, and you
> find that they are still available, double check the product specs. Some 
> of
> the old steam engine
> friendly oils have been redeveloped under the same name, but in new
> applications. For example,
> "Gargoyle" oils were steam cylinder oils back in the twenties, now the 
> name
> is used for
> refrigeration oils, an application that could cross over back then, but 
> not
> now. Mobil bought
> out Socony/ Vacuum Oil way back when, and Mobil tech service still had 
> some
> steam engine
> applications listed the last time I checked.
> Best Regards;
> Jim Mackessy
>
>
>
> >   Were oilers ever used in this application and what type of lube would 
> > be
> > best for this type of application?
> >
>
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