It’s always going to boil down to a thing of personal preference when it comes to what grease and oils to use,…..Labelle, Mobil 1, Red-N-Gooey, whatever ……as John mentioned early on in this thread, it’s the LACK of lube that kills gearboxes, or a mechanical defect as is the case with some locomotives ( Rick’s case) ….I’ve been in the automotive industry for 37 years now, there’s no magic grease, there’s no greasier grease than greasy grease…..we have both Lucas products and Mobil 1 products in the garage,…..just use common sense, if the grease is too thin, it’ll be driven away to the corners of the gearbox and never do it’s job,…..too thick, and now the locomotive has to work harder to push the grease around,….personally, when the Lucas man came to the shop with a drum of Red-N-Gacky, I laughed his butt right out of our store, we have a good powerful grease gun, and that stuff had a hard time coming out….just too darn heavy IMO for everyday use,……maybe a good high impact grease good for 5th wheels and what not, but it’s got no business in a ball joint or a tie rod,….but that’s just me,…..again, just use common sense, if it feels like it’s too thin, it probably is, if too thick, and the locomotive is straining, then you’ve got your answer…no need to overthink it, run your equipment, when you do your maintenance, if things look good inside, keep doing what you’re doing,….if the grease is slung off the gears, and bunched up in the corners not doing any good, then it’s time for a change, ….no??….
Pat
