[Steam-engine] Oilers for Crosshead slides

[James Mackessy]

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?
>