vman1

I did a few searches on the forums regarding lubing / greasing and mostly come up with posts for lubing your chain. What other critical parts on my bike need lubing? My wheels, cranks, bottom bracket?

timster

There is an important distinction between greasing and lubing.

I did a quick search on Google and came up with this.

https://penncycle.com/page.cfm?PageID=624

It seems pretty accurate as far as which parts need to be lubed.

For wheels, the bearings are greased, but the inside of the freehub is lubed. Bottom brackets are also greased.

The way I learned it for metal-on-metal: bearings are greased, everything else gets lube.

f1 8430173

it said somehing in here about lubing your pedals if they creak but my pedals dont exactly creak. they click every time they get to a specific point in the revolution. ive tried lubing but that didnt work well for too long. do you have any other suggestions?

timster

Could be your shoe/cleat, or it could be your bottom bracket. I've had clicking noises from both before. Can you feel it clicking?

Rowan

You're complicating things way more than they need to be:

Wikipedia (assuming it's been posted by someone who knows what they are talking about): "Grease is a lubricant of higher initial viscosity than oil, consisting originally of a calcium, sodium or lithium soap jelly emulsified with mineral oil".

I think you are getting confused between "oiling" and "greasing", the differences between which are defined by their viscosity and means of application.

Under your scenario, how would you classify wax chain lubes after the carrier has evaporated and the wax solidified?

kyledr

Okay, here's the details:

-threaded headset bearings and threads get grease, threadless don't (I assume, but I don't own one)
-threaded stems get greased and inserted into the fork (again, I doubt you do this with threadless)
-Handlebars typically don't get greased in my experience, but I could see the reasoning behind a thin layer
-Hub bearings get greased. Grease up the whole hub axle. If you have nuts instead of quick release, make sure you grease the nuts and or the threads they go on to because you need them super tight. If you have a track bike, grease the threads the cog and lockring go on. Spoke nipples get oiled or anti-seized or blue locktited (debatable, but grease is the default I suppose). Some hubs have an oil port which you can periodically put oil in to extend the period between overhauling the hubs (which means new grease). Don't know much about cartridge bearings, but I assume many service similarly.
-aluminum and steel seatpost gets greased, carbon ones DO NOT
-chains get oiled
-square taper cranks and grease on the taper is highly debatable. If you use proper torque and only use a thin layer of grease, you shouldn't have a problem. It's also probably a good idea to grease the crank bolt. Chainring bolts also get greased. Threaded dustcaps if applicable should be greased.
-look to your bottom bracket manual for specific instructions because they vary quite a bit. Some say grease, some say locktite. On an Italian BB, you should blue locktite the fixed cup (non-drive side) because this has a tendency to come loose. Bearings in the bb get grease. Not sure about cartridge bearing BBs because I've never used one.
-Freewheels get oil from the chain. The threads on the freewheel when you insert it on the hub should be greased. I can't say about cassettes because I've never used one.
-Derailleur cables get oiled and they have a special oil that's supposed to get sucked up the cable by a wicking effect which you can look into.
-You can oil derailleur pivots if you need to.

Am I forgetting anything? This is just a list off the top of my head, but I remember not long ago this stuff being very confusing to me, and I wished for a list like this. Most of this stuff can be done once or twice yearly depending on conditions and usage. Maybe more if you really abuse it and ride it a lot. The exception is chain maintenance, which should be done about once a week or maybe once a month depending on how much you ride and what you ride in. As you may be able to tell, I only have old bikes (actually, mostly fixed gears), so I don't know much about cartridge bearings or cassettes or much about derailleurs even, but those don't have much to do with greasing anyway.

Basically when you have ball bearings encountering a race, it needs grease. When you have two threaded parts that need to interface tightly, grease. Chains and spoke nipples get oil, and sometimes hubs have a oil port. The other exception I can think of is the seat post, and that varies depending on material like I said above.

trackstar10

try tightening your derailleur hanger, try the chainring bolts, and try tightening/lubing quick releases, etc. its almost never the bottom bracket, usually one of the two or three above.

Dead Roman

Be careful man. I got a little aroused reading your title

Rowan

Bearings in threadless do.

But not always for lubrication purposes... only to stop corrosion "welding" the stem, wedge and steer tube together. A smear of grease on the stem can stop a creak emanating from there.

No not usually on handlebars. Even if they appear to be making a noise, it shouldn't be solved with lubrication between the bar and stem... it might cause slippage. The bolts, however, yes. Any noise from there is likely to be more from the stem.

Probably not the cogs and lockring. You don't want lubrication that may encourage them to undo. If you are concerned about corrosion locking them on permanently, use antiseize or Loctite 242/243 or Permatex Blue. The locking mechanism is a bit difficult to explain but lubrication is not overly useful. Greasing the whole hub axle is not necessary -- grease only needs to be on the races, the balls and the cone, and not in excessive quantites.

Not really. The best is boiled linseed oil, if you wish because it dries to lock the thread. And it's got to be the natural stuff, not the artificial. Many wheelbuilders don't lubricated the threads, or use a spoke thread dressing (which does the same as linseed oil). If they do use oil, it is between the nipple and rim. I've never used any lubrication in building wheels, but then I only use stainless spokes (I ditch galvanised spokes, usually after cutting them out).

Usually this is for internally geared hubs, and the oil is quite specific in standard. Older type hubs require grease pumped in with a grease gun so you push the old contaminated grease out at the cones. It is known for people to install the facility for a grease nipple in more modern hubs to perform the same task.

Generally, *most* cartridge bearings are unserviceable. To do so requires destruction of the seals. It's not worth it, when good sealed cartridge BB and wheel bearings will last 30,000km or much more. Just get new cartridge bearings and insert them.

True.

To be really pedantic, lubricated is the proper word. Refer to my question in my previous post about waxes used on chains... they aren't oil, but they are a lubricant.

I don't have a particular problem with this, but I prefer to use Loctite 242/243 or Permatex Blue on the tapers to reduce the possibility of creaking, and on the crank bolts to ensure they don't undo.

Again, noise from the BB cartridge can influence what you use. I prefer Loctite/Permatex on the threads and on the cartridge housing that interfaces with the left (and indeed on some, the right) cup.

On cup and cone BBs, grease on the threads is advisable (again to prevent seizing). Read my bit about hubs. As you point out, BBs that screw in clockwise on the right side need to be threadlocked in place.

I am not sure what you quite mean. The internals of freewheels get their lubrication from oil. To clean one, soak it in degreaser, rinse it out with clean degreaser then hot water. Leave to dry (probably with some heat to speed up the process and so the balls don't start corroding too quickly, or use compressed air), then drizzle heavy-weight oil in from one side until it drizzles out the other side. You can disassmble them to service, but you have to be patient with the ~100 tiny ball bearings, and it's not really worth it.

The cogs, on the other hand, do indeed get lubrication from the chain.

Freewheels, yes, and it's different from fixed-gear because you can't backpedal with a freewheel and risk undoing a freewheel from the hub -- they continue tightening as you go along. The grease is again not a lubricant as such, but stops corrosion from seizing the components together. Anti-seize could work just as well.

As to cassettes on freehubs, you can apply grease on the freehub housing if you wish. I don't personally because it's messy.

Not necessarily. Most quality cables have plastic sheaths on the housing that don't need lubricating, and in fact lubrication can be a handicap and badly affect shifting as it dries out, becomes contaminated with dirt, or stiffens in really cold weather. It's a different story with cheap housing that doesn't have this plastic inside, where lubrication is advised (most derailleur cables have the plastic insert)

A good idea as part of normal clean and service. They tend to be forgotten.

Much more often in bad riding conditions, particularly areas exposed to dirt, water and salt, such as the chain, freewheel and the hubs (hubs more so if you go creek-crossing or through deep puddles). Sealed units help a lot to reduce this chore.

You've done a pretty good job of remembering most things, although some aren't technically right. Generally, a smear of grease on all bolts and nuts prevents seizing, rather than lubricates. You can substitute anti-seize in many cases and DEFINITELY use anti-seize on titanium frames rather than grease.

Greasing of pedal spindles is highly advisable.

In addition, do not grease brake stud bolts... you need to use blue Loctite/Permatex. Likewise, the little fixtures like V-brake tension adjusters need threadlocker. A smear of grease on the pivots points of all brakes is a good idea.

Lubrication of any thread also means that the torque applied can be overdone, especially if you tend to reef down hard on things (which on bicycles generally is not necessary). This is particularly so with pedal spindles on alloy cranks... the grease is there to stop seizing.