Originally Posted by
FBinNY
Years ago I made water "seals" by cutting donuts out of sheets of open cell foam, coating them in grease and trapping them between the crank and cup face. My road/touring bike went over 50,000 miles of mixed weather riding, including plenty of rain, with minimal maintenance --- teardown once per year (about 5k mikes) in the Spring to make sure all road salt deposits were removed --- and was still on all the original bearings (except the headset) when I retired it.
I did the exact same thing in the 1980s with my square taper cranks. I would open it up many miles later and it was as clean as the day I overhauled it. I still have them on my old mtn bike.