I'll tell you another thing: there are people that get all upset when a thread about topic-X is posted in a subforum about topic-Y, and will jump in and be hostile and all fussy about it's existance. I would never do that. If there are people interested in the topic, who the hell am I to object to it? Live and let live. So if you or HillRider or anyone started a thread about Scotch Whiskey in the mechanics forum, you would NEVER see me jump in and run my mouth how this topic is unsuited for the Bike Mechanics forum, and moronic in general, and "please lock it" etc. I'd shut my mouth and let people have their fun and experience exchange. I am VERY respectful of any thread, started anywhere and with any topic - because there are people with interests different than mine, and may benefit one way or the other of that particular thread. If I were a mod, I'd never lock threads, either. If there's no interest in the topic, people won't post and the thread will slowly drift away. If there is interest, then let it be.

Therefore: if you start that alcohol-based thread here, I'll be the first to defend it's right to exist even though I don't even drink alcohol.

And ... for good or for ill ... I believe that explains why you still find chain lube an interesting topic

This is a great thread. Don't open, read, or post if your not into it. I am with you Wroomwroomoops.
I also took heaps on board from the motor oil on chain thread. I now have a new lube that has replaced the Prolink Gold I used to favor. I promise that this new lube will become most popular in my town and country within six months (not sold here yet).

As for grease to get back on topic. A new thought - smell. Phil's is great, but leaves a strong smell on your skin. My wife hates it, and no amount of soap gets it off. Guess it does 'get in'. Just used it liberally on my new cross build. A Yeti ASX.

Are lubes that linger better?

^^^
I use Phil's and it does stink. But no worse than some other greases. Chances are you didn't remove all of the remnants of it from under your nails. I've found Permatex Fast Orange Citrus hand cleaner to be
the best. Leaves no trace of the grime, no offending smell, no lanolin or petroleum used.
Your wife will let you back in the bedroom.

Whenever it gets real messy, I put on a pair of nitrile gloves.

I will give you an advice I know works, but you'll think I'm crazy, at first: wash your hands with soap, normally, and dry them. Then take some butter or margarine (non-salted) and spread it over your hands. Rub it on well - you'll notice, if any of that grease is dark, that it's actually dissolving in the melted butter. Use a paper towel to remove the eccess and now wash your hands again with soap, but don't use too much of it - you don't want to remove all the butter immediately, just gradually.

Repeat butter rubbing + washing if necessary, one or two more times.

This procedure is guaranteed to remove any kind of grease. But then you have to wash off the butter. Which is arguably an easier task.


By the way: can you describe the smell of Phil's grease? I think I received once an old headset that was greased with something really weird-smelling. The smell was... revolting. It reminded me of spit. I can't stand it.

Phil's doesn't have a strong, offensive smell. It's just a distinct strong odor that is detected when you're close to it. The silicone base is probably what makes it difficult to remove from your skin and the smell lingers. The factory Shimano stuff has a similar odor.

It must have been some other brand if it was that bad. I once cracked open a Specialized branded BB and it stunk so badly I had to hold my breath. It reminded me of the stench of a car salvage/junkyard. All that drained fluid mixed into the dirt, rainwater, cooking in the sun for years. It's foul.
Gear lubes use sulfur compounds as an extreme wear additive, they stink! Anyone who has changed their transmission and/or differential lube will know. Maybe some grease brands use it too.

so, what is this SRAM lube?

+1. I've been in some areas of West Texas that also smell that way.

Some of you guys forget about us newbies too..........a thread that starts on one topic but slides into another can be VERY helpful. The chain lube/motor oil thread was a "101" class for me on chains/lube/scotch/humor/posting manners, etc. If you don't like a post or a thread........move on...........

The most important part of a grease is the viscosity of the oil. (ref. 10) A low viscosity oil is used to formulate a low temperature grease. A high viscosity oil is used to formulate a high temperature grease. (ref. 5) A bicycle is going to operate at a relatively low temperature. When selecting a grease for bicycle hub bearings you'll want a grease that is made from low viscosity oil. It doesn't need to be synthetic. The advantage of synthetics is that they work in wider temperature ranges than non-synthetics. They won't break down at high temps and won't solidify at low temps. Bicycles hub bearings don't experience these extremes so it's not worth the extra money.

Thickeners are three dimensional fibrous or crystalline structures commonly referred to as soaps. These thickeners act like sponges. They absorb the oil. When pressure is applied to the grease or the temperature rises, the thickener releases the oil. If the oil is not released it will not lubricate. When pressure is removed or the temperature drops, the thickener re-absorbs the oil. There are a few common thickeners that are rellavent to this discussion. They are Aluminum complex, Lithium complex, and polyurea (ref. 1, 4). Aluminum is used in marine applications. Lithium makes a great all purpose grease and is used in automotive greases. I have yet to find an automotive grease that doesn't use lithium or lithium complex as the thickener. Polyurea is the preferred thickener for use with ball bearings.(ref. 1, 3) Polyurea is synthetic and therefore more expensive to make. (ref. 4) A quote from ref. (3) "Polyurea grease has outstanding resistance to oxidation because it contains no metal soaps (which tend to invite oxidation). It effectively lubricates over a wide temperature range of -20 to 177 EC (-4 to 350 EF) and has long life. Water-resistance is good to excellent, depending on the grade. It works well with many elastomer seal materials. It is used with all types of bearings but has been particularly effective in ball bearings. Its durability makes it well suited for sealed-for-life bearing applications."

Here is a section of the Material safety Data Sheet for Park Tools Polylube 1000.

"PRODUCT TRADE NAME: PPL-1 / PPL-2
ALTERNATE NAME: PolyLube 1000 Lubricant
EFFECTIVE DATE: January 24, 2006 PAGE 1 of 2
SECTION 01 - HAZARDOUS INGREDIENTS
INGREDIENT NAME CAS NUMBER %
DISTILLATES, PETROLEUM, HYDROTREATED HEAVY NAPTHENIC 64742-
DISTILLATES, PETROLEUM, SOLVENT-REFINED HEAVY PARAFFINIC.
POLYUREA THICKENER (PROPRIETARY INGREDIENT# 28277) PROPRIETARY 5-10

As we can see the Park Tool Bicycle Specific Grease uses polyurea as a thickener. This is good because polyurea is the best thickener that you can use on ball bearings which is what is used in bicycle hubs. Remember that automotive greases uses Lithium(complex) which is cheaper but not as well suited for ball bearings. The other ingredients listed, napthenic distillates, heavy refined paraffinic, and petroleum, are non-synthetic oils. This is good because we don't need to pay the higher prices for synthetic oils for use in bicycles. Napthenic oil has to be used for the initial manufacturing of the grease because it bleeds out. Paraffinic oil is used to thin the grease to the proper consistency. Napthenic oil is chosen for dilution because it exhibits less friction. As usual, there are no absolute truths. Paraffinic oil has advantages in some respects, while naphthenic oil has advantages in others. The question of whether to use naphthenic or paraffinic oil for dilution is, however, secondary if the grease is not available for lubrication. If the oil does not bleed out from the grease, then it does not give any lubricant effect at all. (ref. 9) So far in our analysis of Park Tool Polylube 1000 we can see that every aspect of it is specific to use in bicycle hubs.

Finally we come to we come to additives. Additives are best viewed as a package because each individual additive will effect the way the other additives, oil, and thickener work. It's at this point in my research that I became very familiar with term "industry trade secret".

So we can see that "bicycle specific grease" is not just a marketing ploy used to rip us all off. But the question still remains; "Aren't there any less expensive automotive greases that will work in my bicycle hubs?" The answer is yes. The concern is that they probably won't work as well. Another fact that remains is some automotive greases are not at all suited for use in bicycles and will have disastrous consequences. The problem is we don't know which ones these are until we try them. Considering how much a wheel set costs, I'm not willing to gamble on this matter.

1) https://jchemed.chem.wisc.edu/HS/Jour...cSubscriber/V8 3N06/p862.pdf

2) https://www.engineersedge.com/lubrica...ies_grease.htm

3) https://www.usace.army.mil/publicatio...2-1424/c-5.pdf

4) https://autospeed.drive.com.au/cms/article.html?&A=0837

5) https://www.bestsynthetic.com/edu-grease.shtml

6) https://www.fammllc.com/famm/publicat...lletins_08.pdf

7) https://www.contentmart.com/ContentMa...=327&content=1


8) https://www.amstedrail.com/tech_sheets/9202.asp

9) https://www2.nynas.com/naph/start/art...=433&Sec_ID=55

10) https://www.machinerylubrication.com/...?articleid=798

This is a quote from a post of mine from this old grease thread https://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...rease+polyurea

I think the best thing I learned from that thread was that white lithium and polyurea grease are incompatible and will cause each other to break down.

I don't know about the promoting rust part but the dirt part might be a reference to organo clay greases. You can find a lot of info with a quick google search for "organo clay grease". It's used in heavy equipment. Grease is fascinating stuff.

I wouldn't have guessed by your previous post.

Premium Cyclist Lube:

Although one should make it a practice to clean out any old grease before regreasing or using a different grease type, your statement is not entirely true:



Polyurea shear stable (di-urea) grease is compatible with other types of grease. Polyurea (di-urea), Mobil Polyrex EM or Chevron SRI, is factory fill/used in electrical motors and ceramic bearings...SKF, NTN, Timken, etc are just a few manufacturers that specify polyurea for electrical motor bearings. For other applications, a lithium complex grease is factory fill, like Shell Alvania 3. To me, Park grease is just repackaged Mobil Polyrex EM.

Outside of Park Tools grease being polyurea, does anybody know the msds of or what's in Campagnolo Lubrificante Grasso or Kristal SR7 Grease, Shimano factory fill grease, the grease used by the various bottom bracket and hub bearing companies, etc etc? Seems like there are more than a few posts/opinions that polyurea is the only grease that is formulated/recommended for bicycle use...to a point where they should become sales reps for Park Tools grease....lol.

While some greases last longer than others and or excel in one area or another, I have yet to read or hear about unusually high wear or catastrophic bearing failure directly attributed to using automotive greases.

wow, actual useful information in a thread on grease on BF!!!

my head asplode

if you are the kind of person that loves actual technical detail like this I'd suggest you head over to bobistheoilguy.com and check out the grease forum there.

It was only a matter of time before bobistheoilguy.com gets mentioned.
Those guys are more passionate about lube than us about bikes! Talk about OCD!

All this talk about grease is fine and dandy, but again, I challenge anyone to point to a bearing failure because of bad grease. The main cause of bearing failures on bikes is misadjustement, specifically loose bearings, which caused one or two bearings to carry all of the load and leads to premature failure of a cup, cone or axle. The second cause is just neglect, failing to repack bearings when the grease gets dirty, but thats not the greases fault. A sand filled bearing is going to fail no matter how good the grease is.

Don't worry about the type of grease, but check the bearings for play often, and re-pack regularly with anything.

I agree with you completely 3Rensho. I was just trying to send the OCD types over to oildrop so we can talk about something that does make a difference, like different kinds of BEER

FWIW, I ruined a italian NR BB by riding it loose. Replacing that's gonna be a real PITA. In 35 years of cycling (many 10s of thousands of miles) its the only quality (campy) bearing I've ever ruined. Most of them I packed with white lithium grease from the auto parts store, sometimes Phil. The BB I killed was packed with Phil but I rode it a long time with too much play and now its dead. sniff.

Well deserved and quite funny.

My guess is that ball bearings are harder on grease than roller bearings because they don't disperse the weight as much and the polyurea is a more durable thickener. Once the thickener is pulverized by ball bearings the oil leaks out and leaves nothing but the thickener leading to a dry ball track. Just a guess though. I know that everyone says that bikes are a light load application compared to cars when it comes to grease but I'm not so sure. I light car weighs about 2,000lbs. That 2,000lbs is distributed over 4 wheels so there is 500lbs per wheel. Cars have two sets of roller bearings per wheel so there would be about 250lbs per roller bearing. The roller bearings probably distribute that weight 50-100 times more than a bicycle ball bearing. So the actual pounds per square inch that a car's roller bearing applies to the grease might be less than what a bicycle ball bearing applies per square inch. Again just a theory.

I do have to say when the temps are in the single digits my bike feels slower. I'm not sure if it's the grease but it might be worth experimenting with other lubricants.

Even though I'm a member at bobistheoilguy.com, I usually hang around the oil forums. Not many do an oil analysis on grease. Besides, you would be hard pressed to beat the performance of Mystic JT-6 (the regular formula in the green tube, not the high temp grease) and it's readily available locally, like at Wal*Mart. Plus it won't wash out like other greases, and that includes some "marine greases"...a favorite with boat trailer owners that routinely submerge their trailers to launch their boats...and has a Timken OK load rating in excess of 55 pounds.

Schaeffer grease was a long time favorite at BTOG. Aluminum Complex greases take longer to make than other grease types (up to 5 days). Lithium Complex grease technology has virtually caught up and is cheaper and easier to find locally. I still use Schaeffer #274 NLGI #2 synthetic grease, but it's a pain to buy single tubes online. In NLGI #1, #274 would be good for a bicycle application...a lighter grease that doesn't wash out. That being said, a NLGI #1.5 grease or a NLGI #2 grease that's on the low end of the NLGI #2 range would be an excellent all season bicycle grease and #1.5 grease is usually used in high performance and racing skate, roller blade, karting, etc etc events. Slick 50 One Grease is one example of a NLGI #2 rated grease on the low viscosity side, very close to being a NLGI #1.5 grease...but with Slick 50 One grease, you will have to grease more often, so Mystic JT-6 has it beat.

a friend of mine worked in a bike factory and he used to bring home this special fine red bike grease was very thin grease and made bikes run alot smoother,heavy grease goes hard after a while and locks everything up especially in the cold weather,i have not seen this red fine grease for many years now,it was good stuff.

Well, grease.....is grease.....is grease? Not hardly! I have worked in the petroleum refining industry in process, production and manufacturing for a long time. I am a 3rd generation petroleum production specialist (does that sound knowledgeable and important?). Everyone knows that the secret to lubrication is to cover all mating surfaces that provide friction. A good example of this is the new engines of the late 1990's-today use thinner viscosity oils? Why? (Please don't get bored, because my point will be made in about 4 sentences). Because Auto manufacturer's are using a higher nickel content in engine block production allowing for higher temperatures to be maintained in engines. The key to lubrication is penetration which by using thinner oils will reach tighter bearing tolerances. This is why you see 5w-20 and 10w-30, when in the 1930's up through the 1970's single viscosity oils, such as 30w were very utilizable in the old 64 327/300horse power Chevrolet's. The higher nickel content in the block allows for the higher temperatures to be run, but oil breaks down much quicker demanding an oil change every 3000 miles, unless running pure Synthetic oil. What does that have to do with bikes bearing surfaces? Everything. Does anyone here have a clue what Andy Schleck's bottom bracket was going through during last years Tour De France (I know you don't give a hoot if you are not his fan)? There is a lot of stress and fatigue in the bottom bracket of a high end road bike under such strain. Unless the chain stays and a part of the seat tube and down tube are sealed off and holding a level of ATF in a pool (Dexron, no doubt), the bottom bracket shell area is going through a lot and need to be properly lubricated. A thin lubricant will have to be used that will hold its viscosity and adhere to the bearing and race surfaces for a long duration. There are many excellent products on the market that will conform to the TDF pressures. I am just a cruiser who fits many other peoples needs who are here reading this. All who are into road bikes should do seasonal's on a quarterly basis, minimum. What oil brand do I buy for my car? My grandfather used to laugh as a geologist working for an oil company during the 20's and say, it all comes out of the same hole in the ground and they are all bickering and fighting for the best lubrication. Processing and production is the key. You all can run your Phil grease and automotive top grade bearing grease, or what ever you should choose, but for me and my horse? My Colnago will run Campagnolo Grasso. Good night and Ride Smart - Ride Safe,
John in La Grange, Texas

johnman63: Please note this thread is several years old. Please note this in the future. Also - could you please learn to use parenthesis? It's difficult for people to read a block of words that have no line-break in them. Please?

Thanks!

Did you mean paragraphs? (Not Parenthesis).

But yes, the block was difficult to read.

They don't teach bicycle mechanics in English class.
You can't teach writing on the bicycle forum.