Royal Enfield Bullet 4 speed gearbox - to fill with grease or oil discussed.
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 25 ก.ค. 2024
- This topic crops up so many times and many owners seem to choose grease to lubricate their 4 speed Royal Enfield gearboxes. Here, I state my case for using oil, although I slip up at one point and say 'oil', when I should have said 'grease'!
I had this doubt since 1947;-)
Thanks paul
Love from India 🇮🇳
Hi Paul, great insights as ever. As for me I'm using "00" grade grease which is more or less like liquid and I need to top it up with SAE 50 oil. So far it is working smooth like butter for the past 14 years. No leakage as well.
Because of the difficulty in getting "00" grease, most technicians in India use a mixture of normal grease mixed up in oil to make the consistency of "00" grade. That also works fine.
Anyway I'm looking forward to experiment.
Thanks for keeping on sharing your valuable knowledge.
I was desperately waiting for this video. Thank you Mr Paul. I mostly enjoy your content, its filled up with valuable information! I tried with sea 140 API with 50 grams grease mixing throughly! Results gearbox is silent and smooth !
I put up with over 20 years of leaks from my gearbox before I finally had enough and installed sealed bearings. Problem fixed. The seal and felt washer were useless to stop leaks on their own. It came with grease which I started to refill back when I first got it, but I came to the same conclusion that it was no good for proper lubrication and also switched to oil.
I worked on a lot of British equipment back in the 60's. That gear box appears to be unchanged from that era. In those days with felt rings and such, we used Non-detergent oil in both the engine and transmission otherwise oil would leak everywhere. It took some looking in those days to find it, but it was worth it. Now, good luck finding it. Valvoline was the usual brand.
Adding grease to gearboxes was quite common at one time and was done to minimise oil leakage.
In the manual I once had for the WD models it was quite specific about when where and how much grease should be used, on those earlier pre unit gearboxes there was a recess at the very bottom of the gearbox main case and it was recommended that a dollop of soft grease was put into this only at the time of overhaul, the grease was not for lubrication but the solids it was made up from would find their way to any potential leak points and seal them much like Radweld does on car cooling systems.
The type of grease used would readily mix with the oil when the box got warm and caused no problems when it came to draining the oil out, if I remember rightly these earlier gearboxes as used on model Gs Js and WDs had no form of seals on the kickstart side of the box and the initial addition of grease was effective in minimising any leaks here.
As well as many earlier motorcycle gearboxes the initial addition of grease was also applied to many car and machine tool gearboxes for the very same reason as many of these relied on rudimentary felt seals or closely fitting bushes to stop oil escaping in both cases the very fine clays used to make the grease would fill small clearances and improve the performance of felt or leather seals.
Fair comment, but I have worked on Model G and J machines, as well as earlier ones, even the V twin RE's took oil in their gearboxes, as stated on their fillers and in the manuals.
I have a tendency to gloss over stuff that, as long as the bike is running well, becomes unimportant. I like the way you treat everything as important and worthy of discussion. Something, I feel, a lot of us can learn from.
I make up a fluid grease for my 1940 Ariel box because it has no proper seals except bits of felt, and the makers recommended this type of lube. My later 1955 gearbox has proper sealed bearings and rubber seals on all the parts that stick out of the case, and normal engine oil is recommended The oil filled box is so much smoother in comparison.
Absolutely sound reasoning. I've never seen a grease lubricated gearbox that ran at more than a few RPM on very basic light load machinery. Grease has it's applications but it's not as the primary lubricant in these boxes. I suspect there's more than one nationality that are capable of bodging machinery like that. Is that a "factory" diesel or a conversion? Thanks for going into the detail of your thoughts as you always do.
Hi Paul,
Came across your video just scrolling through TH-cam, good information and honestly did not know, and now I do.
Keep up the good content. Subscribed.
Awesome, thank you!
Very interesting Paul, excellent advice as usual, yeah, who wants to run a gearbox on grinding paste eh ?
HI Paul, nice video and info as always. I don't know how i missed your videos on TH-cam. Recently stumbled on it a few days ago and am glued.
I feel the reason of adding grease and oil mix is hot weather of India with temperatures reaching 48-49* C (worth checking from guys who ride through Ladakh where temp goes in minus, what they use there?....any such guy can answer please).
I have a 1977 Bullet Std and I remember while restoring, 20+ years ago, I researched this topic. Then also every one said grease+oil, I wasn't convinced but finally gave up and added the Pudding. Sometime later got talking to one old timer who mentioned 500 ML of 20w50 oil and 100 gms(for refill only, for initial increase to 700ml in 5:1 ratio) of grease is whats good for our hot weather. Switched to 100 gms grease and 500 ML oil, topping up with oil. one can easily drain. It flows out like oil only I keep it overnight and everything comes out. All these years there's never been an issue with gear box, still butter smooth.
Page 7 of RE Workshop Manual -2000 Edition says '700 grams of Veedol '00' grease (for topping up use SAE-20W50)'. Now I don't understand.... the R & D engineers at RE could have used EP-90 or EP140 grade oil also, but chose 00 grease? or the design isn't good enough to hold the oil inside in this heat? Here(in India) every mechanic swears by grease pudding, if u reason, they will laugh and say...it will leak!!
Good seals = no leaks!
Very good telling! As a new indy bullet owner I thank you greatefully!
Great stuff Paul, you certainly made the case for oil, not grease! as an aside, your recent videos on the Cub inspired me to get my ar*e into gear and get mine back running, I have a 65 T20, and I'm loving riding it now, so thanks for the inspiration mate! cheers Dave
Great to hear, Dave and thank you!
Hi Paul, My 2004 Indian made 4 speed was definitely full of horrible grease that wasn't particularly soft or liquid. I topped it up with gear oil and ran it like that for a few thousand miles but even then, removing the drain plug didn't result in much action. If I'd kept it I would have considered putting about 330ml of red diesel in it to thin it down in the hope that it would drain out. However, I cured the problem by fitting a 5 speed box ;-)
I've just bought a 1992 Indian made 350 Bullet. I removed the gearbox drain plug and nothing came out. I could see grease inside around the filler and level plug so I guess I've got a grease filled one! I'll change to oil.
One thing of note Paul is the bearings that have seals are sealed for life with grease inside and if the design life of that bearing is say 100,000 miles that is how long the bearing will last while sealed
If you prize the seal off the bearing one side then you introduce oil into the bearing which is fine if it's clean oil
Being that it's gearbox oil it'll likely have some debris floating which can shorten the life of the bearing
While what you say is true, prizing a seal out of one side of a 2RS bearing is common practice, effectively creating a Z type (single shielded bearing). The tolerances and running parameters for a 2RS bearing will be the same as for the open bearing of the same class, i.e. a C3 bearing is the same regardless of whether it's open, shielded or sealed. If an open bearing was used originally, a half sealed 2RS will last just as long.
@@niallsommerville9941 I used to remove one seal to let oil run into the bearing until I read about the improvements that were made to engine life of racing BSA/CCM unit single engines where the racing life of the engine has been extended
One of the modifications is to leave all the seals on the bearings to keep the debris out
This includes the timing side main bearing on BSA b44 engines
Albeit a metal shield on that particular bearing
I would expect a bearing to maybe last longer if the oil running into the bearing was clean
Back in the day people would remove wheel bearings from a bike,wash them out and re pack with grease
Bearings are sealed these days and last thousands of miles
@@nickmarshall9192 I'm sure you're correct from experience of specific applications and where it's deemed impractical to try to minimise the original source of the oil contamination such as racing or maintaining the mechanical integrity of a classic machine. I'm not convinced there would be a measurable benefit in the case, pardon the pun, of the boxes Paul's discussing.
I had a habit of replacing open or shielded bearing in synchronous 3ph motors and was able to measure the increased longevity using condition monitoring vibration analysis equipment but in some cases my assumptions were wrong and the sealed arrangement had a detrimental effect.
I wouldn't discount that modern production capabilities in both material and machining tolerance / quality control has been as much a factor in the longevity and costs of producing common application bearings.
I agree, happy days cleaning and repacking bearings and there is still a great deal of satisfaction to be gained from that activity.
Yes totally agree
I have the G2 1954 and followed the book and used oil in the gearbox and grease on the outer mechanism
I read the manual and used oil 👍
Can you please let me know whether how to acquire the manual? I've been trying to get hold of the manual for a long time now.
Atleast a download link would be fine.
As of now, all I have is Pete snidal's book.
Fascinating. Thanks Paul.
Thanks again, Herman!
10k miles on my Redditch Bullet with EP90 in the box and it's as good as the day it was built. I do have a few leaks though! I wouldn't dream of lubricating a motorcycle gearbox with grease!
Excellent Paul!!!
Thanks, Gary!
Thanks for the heads up Paul, I've just bought a Bullet 500 and having given it a bit of a blat around the Devon lanes the other night, today I discovered 'nasty greasy goo' dribbling from the kick start/gear lever seal. I have an Indian manual, which recommends mixing grease with oil?? Which I why I've come looking for more info, thankfully I've found your video etc. Much appreciated, wise advice. My last Bullet was a Hitchcock Woodsman special, which I had to sell unfortunately to fund a return to college that was great, hence my purchase of another Bullet 10 years later. Rgds Lin.
Very interesting...the Burman gear box on my 37 AJ recommends grease..but I’ve been thinking of adding some gear oil to it...
Great to have that confirmed 👍. Oil is what I will stick with.
I am using the combination of grease & lub oil for last 13 years, no problem at all
Just perfect. Currently rebuilding my 350g Redditch gearbox and looking for a proper manual with clear exploded views and installation instructions. Is there a copy available somewhere to purchase?
You're probably right about that filling with "grease" largely being a later Indian expedient, though probably based on the common enough and time-honoured British "bodge" for well-worn gearboxes with dodgy seals: glorping in that thin and almost gear-oil-like "00" type grease, which one then might top up with 90 weight or similar gear oil from time to time as needed. Here in the States that snotty "00" weight grease is nowadays something of a special order item unlikely to be found on the shelves of your local auto supplies joints, but readily available from online vendors like Amazon. Personally, I've got the later 5-Speed box on my Bullet, so the whole "to grease or not to grease" quandry is irrelevant. It just likes 90 weight gear oil, and mine gets only the straight GL-4 rated stuff instead of GL-5, since I'm led to understand that some brands may add phosphorous-based anti-impact additives to bring their goops to that GL-5 rating, which will then commence dissolving any brass or cupric bits in elderly-style gearboxes like ours like salt on slugs. Not ALL GL-5s are harmful, but enough are that I give them a wide berth on general
principle in my old clunkers. If one cannot find the straight GL-4 stuff in the automotive aisles, check the boating section, since it's often used in outboards and other final drives. As for those 4-Speed boxes, I had been led to understand that there are some special latter-day seals intended to keep them more oil tight so as to dispense with using any grease. But like you said, many folks are happily thumping around with those original seals and just straight gear oil in their bellies with no ill effect or excessive leakage.
Steering box lube for older vehicles is the same messy stuff.
Supposedly one can find #00 grease at Tractor Supply.
I should be able to test this matter at a nearby store of that kind in a very few days. I’ll probably get some if I find it, as it’s useful stuff in general.
Accoding to my Enfield India 350 owners manual it says
For initial filling up of gearbox MARFAK OO grease is recommended, During routine maintenance, topping up may be done with SAE 50 oil.
There is no such mention of this in the original Redditch factory manual. Is the manual you refer to a factory one, or one someone has just written themselves?
Hi, can either of you send a link of where I can find the manual of 1976 model online.
Thanks in advance
More importantly, drill through the kick starter shaft and put a grease nipple on it. That long bushing can be starved of lube no matter what the lube inside is. If you watch a gaggle of Bullets pulling away from a stop at least one of them will have the kick starter swing down under the torque reaction - especially those with the close ratio drop gear. Sometimes the swinging footpeg bit of the kick starter will jam under the silencer on the return too.
I think you need some grease for the bearings on the upper shaft that don't run in oil. This may be the "recesses" that your manual refers to. The 'Fluid Levels' page in my manual says "Initial filling done at factory with 700 grams Veedol '00' Compound". For 'Topping Up' it says "As required", "20W50 oil".
I think you may have the Indian manual.
@@paulhenshaw4514 Yes.
@@paulhenshaw4514 Your gearbox looks the same as mine. What does the grease nipple beside the oil filler hole do? Should I ignore it?
That is for greasing the clutch actuating arm's spindle - one shot every 50 years should do!
@@paulhenshaw4514 Thanks for clarifying. Out of boredom, and because I've cleaned everything else, I pulled off the end cover this past weekend. Found it to be packed with white grease. I cleaned it all out and squirted a tiny bit of lithium lube onto the moving parts of the ratchet assembly, and the actuating arm. Put everything back together and refilled with 20w50 Motul. Shifting was good before, but now it's super-smooth. Thanks again for all your tips and advice, Paul. I couldn't have done it without you. th-cam.com/video/5uck56CCOw8/w-d-xo.html
On my trials Bullet, it only will shift into 3rd gear with 00 grease. I sure it could be adjusted but for me......
My aul fella rode a bullet in the 60s and the only thing he used grease for was his ducks arse hair doo which was the style back in the day🤣🤣🤣.
Another great video..
Thanks for that!
The older boxes needed 00 grease or oil grease mix as they had no seals and 90 grade oil would piss out. The Indian ones are fine with straight 50 and I add a bit of Moreys.
They all had seals and all were to be filled with oil, according to factory manuals, as per my commentary in the video.
@@paulhenshaw4514 maybe at the input/ output but the kick start shaft on my 51 Bullet leaked constantly (possibly because of wear) but was fine with 00 grease. It is a weird product as it would clump around the case of the box but there would always be liquid around the gears. Horrible stuff to deal with but good in certain applications. I got it from a yacht winch maker.
A book pdf file wich saite available sir
If a Gearbox or Final drive , bikes, cars, trucks , bulldozers, filling with Grease is a Bodge lol , Oil is the way to go 👍🏻
If the gearbox is not oil tight, there is a liquid grease available, which is used in agricultural machinery.
Yes, John Deere “corn head grease.”
Have wondered about this or similar for “home made” gearing arrangements.
👍🏴
Felt seals are grease boxes.fit seals and use oil. I mix vasaline and 90 gear oil on the old bikes converted to oil.
That felt seal in the gearbox sprocket nut is just a gland type seal, to keep what might be minor seepage at worst under control.
Would a magnetic drain plug help these gearboxes?
Possibly.
Cleaned the awful waxy grease out of my 4 speed, bloody daft idea putting grease in it!
I'm not familiar with these tranny. Is that a grease fitting on the top rite of the outer cover.What does that service. Thank you.
That grease nipple serves the pivot of the clutch operating arm, one shot every 10 years or so is about all it needs!
Paul, what do you use in the clutch housing?
Hi Charles, as I said in the video, I use 20/50 mineral oil in the engine, clutch, gearbox and forks and it works fine.
@@paulhenshaw4514 thanks Paul, guess I missed it in the list.
Has 90W oil ever had a big following in the UK ? For these types of applications ? During my wee-years in Russia, it was all the rage...especially among the fading WW2 generation, who called it "Tank Lube" (maslo dlya armeyskikh tankov). Millions of barrels of that stuff must have been made during the Great War.
Laslo, a kind neighbour, would use a 50/50, 90W/petrol mixture in the crankcase of his Lada !
Hi Amelie, yes, 90W gear oil - and even 140W can be commonly found around here, although I tend to use lighter oils [less drag and power loss].
What oil for 1951 Bullet mate?
I would just use 20/50 mineral.
@@paulhenshaw4514 thanks mate. Do you know What oil for primary case?
@@korymills1590 I use the same for engine, gearbox, primary case and forks - just plain old 20/50 mineral.
@@paulhenshaw4514 brilliant. Thank you mate 🍻
U can put 50 50 it’s better I may said because of stupidity but I used to do the my farm equipment it stop the grease to getting dry
You can use 50/50, but I prefer to use oil, as there is less drag and power loss.
I just better then just grease 🤔
Grease definitely is not 'the word'!!!
Hi sir i want this mannual book ok bullet if you have then send to me
You could try Hitchcocks, they might have one.
00 grease is fine.
Oil is better.
Fill it with c4 , it'll do the ton then.....