Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

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Samuel D
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Samuel D »

Pedals spin at the same speed as the bottom bracket, Gattonero. But most bicycle bearings are relatively low speed and high load. Low speed places higher demands on the grease because it gives it plenty of time to be squeezed out from between load-bearing surfaces.

Gattonero wrote:Three products, is very simple.

Simple but not necessarily best.

Read the thread Mick linked to. It’s very informative even if it doesn’t prescribe a simple solution.
pliptrot
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by pliptrot »

My utterly impertinent contribution here is that I have used SuperLube synthetic grease (I understand this is an American product, so the guff on the packaging is typically "this stuff will change your life") on everything cycle related (including freehub pawls) to good effect. It is clear and colourless, and is claimed to be water resistant. So far it has proved to be, and has lasted well in BBs, hubs and headsets. Admittedly I am talking of decent equipment and thus the bearings are well shielded/sealed (no contamination, which is easy to spot with this stuff) but so far, so good. It is non-toxic (important for me seeing as I spread anything like grease way further than is feasible) and compatible with all seal and O-ring materials. Or so it is claimed. Water resistance was tested on a flat plate against some other well known cycle-specific greases with long immersion and then with a hosepipe. (I was bored). SuperLube was the best in this test.
Brucey
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Brucey »

that is not one I've tried; if it is indeed compatible with all seal materials presumably it is OK with cable liners too? Or is it too sticky for that use?

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Gattonero
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Gattonero »

Samuel D wrote:Pedals spin at the same speed as the bottom bracket, Gattonero. But most bicycle bearings are relatively low speed and high load. Low speed places higher demands on the grease because it gives it plenty of time to be squeezed out from between load-bearing surfaces.

Gattonero wrote:Three products, is very simple.

Simple but not necessarily best.

Read the thread Mick linked to. It’s very informative even if it doesn’t prescribe a simple solution.


I know what professionals use, but I don't think everyone needs to apply to such strict procedures.
Like me, and by reccomendation of the profesisonals, better to use one type of grease and service the headset every 6 months, than leaving a specialist grease for years and it may be all right, who knows? I like to keep my bikes the best way, and I don't mind the regular quick checkover/clean/lube, it is more time consuming but does involves less complicated procedures -like full degreasing- especially today with threadless headsets, etc.
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best,
since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.
Thus you remember them as they actually are...
pliptrot
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by pliptrot »

The SuperLube grease is NLGI grade 2, making it "normal grease" (their words). I have used it on cables. Then again, I ride mostly fixed and braking is not the problem, so the cable isn't used much!
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Gattonero
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Gattonero »

pliptrot wrote:The SuperLube grease is NLGI grade 2, making it "normal grease" (their words). I have used it on cables. Then again, I ride mostly fixed and braking is not the problem, so the cable isn't used much!


I prefer oil in the cables, Finish Line wet (the green label) is an excellent multi-purpose oil in my opinion: cables, pivots, and chain (but wipe it off regularly!) one product does them all.
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best,
since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.
Thus you remember them as they actually are...
Brucey
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Brucey »

Gattonero wrote:
pliptrot wrote:The SuperLube grease is NLGI grade 2, making it "normal grease" (their words). I have used it on cables. Then again, I ride mostly fixed and braking is not the problem, so the cable isn't used much!


I prefer oil in the cables, Finish Line wet (the green label) is an excellent multi-purpose oil in my opinion: cables, pivots, and chain (but wipe it off regularly!) one product does them all.


Not all oils are good in all cables; often the oil reacts with the liner which then swells and softens. The same goes for greases; the oil in the grease can react in the same way. A few lubes are specced as being OK in some (or all) liners but most are not. The best solution to this is probably to find a combination of lube and cable housing that works and to stick to it. Juts because a lube works in one type of cable it is no guarantee that it will work OK in another.

I've got mixed feelings about the finish line wet; I think it is OK if you clean your bike often but if not (eg on commuting machines) you can get 'crud monsters' building up on every exposed part of the drivetrain. The crud usually sets like concrete and is really difficult to remove. It jams between sprockets (I've seen several cassettes that were replaced through chain jumping, and it was the crud that was doing it... :roll: ) it jams rear mechs, it jams derailleur pulleys, it can even jam chains if the chain is allowed to dry out....

Similarly if (this, and some other types of) chain lube splashes onto the wheel rims it can dry to form a film of almost unshiftable crud. On the plus side it can deter corrosion, but on the minus side it is incredibly difficult to shift this stuff, and it even seems to dissolve the top layer of printing on the rim graphics!

Another 'lube problem' is that of 'soap reactions'; if you mix the wrong types of grease together you can create something that (over a few days or weeks) can set to the consistency of firm cheese. It turns out that you can also get a reaction between some wet chain lubes (and I think that finish line wet is one such) and the soap in some commonly used greases.

I've seen several failed rear hubs where the RH bearing has failed; the drivetrain has clearly been lubed with a wet lube (in several cases -but not all- definitely finish line wet) and presumably some of it has got into the hub, either deliberately (eg to lube the freehub bearings) or accidentally. Anyway there has clearly been a reaction; the RH bearings usually appear to have black cheese rather than grease in them, the freehub pawls can be very sticky, the hub seal is torn up etc... not much corrosion or evidence of water ingress in there necessarily, but it can be a right mess; once the balls don't roll easily the bearing soon starts to break up. By contrast the LH hub bearing in the same hubs is usually just fine, even if the LH seals are nothing special.

So when it comes to lubes it pays to 'proceed with caution' when trying new stuff out in new combinations; you can't really take much for granted; until recently if you had tried to tell me that a splash of chain lube could destroy a hub I wouldn't have believed it, but I've seen it happen enough times now that it is almost irrefutable.

I probably ought to try a matrix of common greases/chain lube mixtures to see which combinations are worst, but it is just another bloomin' job to do, eh...? :wink:

cheers
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Gattonero
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Gattonero »

My friend who's a professional mechanic recommended me the Finish Line green, as they use it on a daily basis. I can say that have never experienced any noticeable amount of "crud" caking up, neither I've been told about failures of parts due to this lube. In fact, my chains and parts are always pretty clean..., hold on, maybe's because I do wipe-off regularly, say every few weeks? That goes with my personal view "if you don't want a problem, don't create a situation that may lead to a problem".

I think takes a lot of abuse and lack of attention to build up so much grime to have the chain skipping, at that point I don't think that any maintenance product could be the substitute for lack of common sense.

As far a cables, I've used the Finish Line in Campagnolo, Shimano, Avid Flack Jacket and Jagwire. Some of those cables are on bikes which are up to 14 years old and still with the original cables after >10.000km. It seem strange to me that Teflon would react badly with oil? It is true however that on exposed sections of Teflon/Pvc the dirt works its way in and gets trapped; I've seen this happening on chaps with their carbon road bike where the wire for the front mech comes out the BB shell and gets lots of spray form the rear wheel.
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best,
since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.
Thus you remember them as they actually are...
Brucey
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Brucey »

'Teflon' lubes don't always contain very much Teflon; wet ones are invariably an oil of some kind with some kind of Teflon product mixed in.

The oils do completely different things to polymers depending on the base stock they are made from; there is nearly always some swelling (rather than none) but with some oils it can be a lot worse than others.

Oils made from a mineral base stock tend to have a mixture of isomers or near-isomers (selected via fractional distillation) and tend to produce middling levels of swelling. Fully synthetic oils can to be a single isomer, and are either 'very good' or 'very bad indeed' with any given polymer. Semi-synthetic oils can be like mineral oils or more like synthetic oils in the way they behave.

In theory you can predict what is going to happen but you need to know the exact make-up of both the oil and the polymer; in practice it is easier just to test it; an 'acceptable' result is not at all the same thing as 'no drag through swelling' and 'no accelerated wear through softening'; it all just eats into the tolerances built into the system and may make it's performance more sensitive to something else.

In the case of the finish line wet lube I'm not sure if the issue is with the oil or some other ingredient. I think this lube may have some kind of thickener in it which works when it is exposed to air; thus it comes out of the bottle OK (even though AFAICT there is no solvent in it) but once on the chain it thickens so that it sticks on better and doesn't fly off like other oils might. It may well be this thickener that reacts with some greases.

Past that it is almost pointless speculating what it is exactly because there are so many different additives that can be added to specialist lubricants. Obviously manufacturers will tend to keep schtum about their 'special ingredients' where possible but if any part of it has any known heath implications they will have to declare it on the H&S data sheet, so you can sometimes find out what is in it that way.

BTW I've not got a downer on finish line per se; I've happily used their grease for years and it works very well. It uses a fully synthetic base oil and I have found that it doesn't attack the kinds of cable housing that I mostly use; that however is but a subset of all that are available.

cheers
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Gattonero
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Gattonero »

Yes, all this says that "grease in not all the same", and so is every lubricant. Like yogurts are not all the same, i.e. some use whole milk, some use skimmed milk.
I'm not too sure everyone needs a compendium of chemical terminology before doing the regular maintenance to their bikes. Don't get me wrong, is good to have knowledge 8)

For my experience, the average cyclist need no more than 5 or 6 specific products:
-Teflon or fully synthetic grease for the "high speed" parts, or suspension forks
-Lithium or thick Waterproof grease for the part that need good protection from corrosion
-medium weight oil
-lightweight oil/water displacer (like GT85 or WD40, although none of them is technically an "oil")
-degreaser (bio degreaser preferrable)
-medium threadlock
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best,
since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them.
Thus you remember them as they actually are...
Brucey
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Brucey »

Gattonero wrote: -lightweight oil/water displacer (like GT85 or WD40, although none of them is technically an "oil")


most such products are little more than a medium-light oil plus a solvent and something to 'make it smell right'.

If you take a sample and leave it so that the solvent evaporates, you end up with a residue that is an oil, much like lots of other oils that are used for lubrication.

You will hear lots of talk on 'tinterweb about such products being 'cleaners not lubricants' but in reality they are both.

Out of the can it is 'mostly solvent' and after the solvent has evaporated the residue is indeed mostly oil.

GT85 also has tiny flakes of solid PTFE in the oil residue. You can see these under a microscope if you look.

cheers
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Mick F
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Mick F »

Gattonero wrote:As far a cables, I've used the Finish Line in Campagnolo ................ up to 14 years old and still with the original cables after >10.000km.
Campag?
Lubed for life, you don't need to touch them ........... except the short length at the rear mech that I put oil into when I think about it.

I too have Camapg cables (only 12 years old!) and have done maybe 30,000miles. Untouched.
Mick F. Cornwall
pliptrot
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by pliptrot »

Mick F,

on the subject of longevity, your Mercian is now more than 30 years old (?). Even older than those cables.Do you imagine it will last indefinitely, or - as one of the idle rich- you'll be indulging in something shiny and new soon, just in case? (Just kidding - I am a work slave and with a baby due this year realise that I may never be in the position to buy another bike; so I am looking for reassurance!).
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Mick F
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Mick F »

pliptrot wrote:Mick F,

on the subject of longevity, your Mercian is now more than 30 years old (?). Even older than those cables.Do you imagine it will last indefinitely, or - as one of the idle rich- you'll be indulging in something shiny and new soon, just in case?
many a true word ............
I bought a Moulton TSR only a month or so after the end of this thread. It hasn't replaced Mercian, just given me another string to my bow.

I dug this thread out after being in the workshop tinkering with the Moulton and considering the lube options I have for the 3sp SA I now have on it.
I still have the part tin of black CV joint grease I referred to up thread, and wondered if I could use it inside the 3sp SA. It's soft and creamy, so probably won't gum it up.

I have gearbox oil in at present, but it seeps out a bit and coats the wheel and brake.

CV joint grease ok or not?
Mick F. Cornwall
Brucey
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Re: Grease is grease is grease. Or not?

Post by Brucey »

Mick F wrote: I still have the part tin of black CV joint grease I referred to up thread, and wondered if I could use it inside the 3sp SA. It's soft and creamy, so probably won't gum it up.

I have gearbox oil in at present, but it seeps out a bit and coats the wheel and brake.

CV joint grease ok or not?


not all CV joint greases are created equal. Many of the commercially available ones are #2 viscosity (too thick for a SA hub) and not quite as loaded with good things as perhaps they ought to be.

If you want to create your own mixture of CV joint grease and gear oil that might work, but it depends on the exact way the thickeners work in the CV joint grease as to whether the resultant mixture has useful variations in viscosity with shear rate or not.

cheers
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