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Let the Oil Vs Grease Debate Continue


Bull Bar Cowboy

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The oil Vs grease debate of swivels has always been a subject on here :rolleyes: …………….. many times we have speculated on water entry to the swivel housing but nobody (that I can remember) has ever posting factual evidence of this happening on a grand scale ……….. we have seen them run dry (thanks Les) ……. but not water damage.

Last night the O/S/F was stripped ready to rebuild with new parts ……….. the result was interesting …………. These pictures may be slightly exaggerated due the vehicle having been standing for a while and thus the oil and water separating……

There was no obvious sign of oil leakage, however the oil in the swivel probably amounted to a small teacup full. The migration of the water interested me more……. did it get in through the wheel bearing stub axle oil seal and migrate through the bearings and then up the inside of the stub axle ?…… that to me, is the normally favoured path but in this case the bearing damage would indicate that water entered the bearing front the front and not the rear.

Did it enter via the swivel seal and then migrate through to the wheel bearings ?

The swivel seal shows no sign lip damage or water entry on the lip sealing surface, however, the seal to housing area does indeed show signs of water ingress……this is the area where Mark90 mentioned that there was a gasket ……….. I have never seen one and the parts book does not seem to show one for later axles.

With regard to the oil …………. I strongly suspect that it migrated to the diff via a damaged halfshaft oil seal. Normally the reverse is true and when this seal becomes less efficient, the swivel fills with oil from the diff and spews it out of the end cap.

Whilst I know that a few on here strongly advocate oil (and have a valid reasoned argument) ……. Others go with the LR idea that grease is OK (and again have a valid reasoned argument) …………………. I am of the opinion that both is best ……….. it is well known that one pack of grease is insufficient to fill a swivel from empty ……… so I then top up with EP90 to end up with a very runny grease ……… the best of both worlds ………

Let the debate continue……………….

The CV Joint :blink:

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The halfshaft ----- notice the corrosion damage to the oil seal surface

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The outer wheel bearing

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Inner bearing shows little sign of water damage

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Some f'kin moron has been at these bearing before (probably a main stealer !) :D

P9010033Large.JPG

answers on a postcard to.............. (many of you are too young to remember that) :rolleyes:

Ian

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When was the last time anyone here saw a halfshaft spline corrosion fretted away on an oil lubricated hub.

A pair of oil lubricated cv joints on a 1981 stage 1 V8 were still like new after 350,000 kilometers.

Bearing manufacturers give a considerably higher load rating for bearings lubricated in oil than when lubricated in grease. Periodic maintenance, ie dismantling hubs , swivels etc to repack with fresh grease is a major PITA. On oil lubed vehicles just drain and refill. No need for new seals, gaskets etc.

Bill.

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The swivel seal shows no sign lip damage or water entry on the lip sealing surface, however, the seal to housing area does indeed show signs of water ingress……this is the area where Mark90 mentioned that there was a gasket ……….. I have never seen one and the parts book does not seem to show one for later axles.

The gasket certainly exists for early defender axles with the railko bush, I have some in the garage. But for the twin taper bearing swivels it appears there is not a gasket available. The swivel housing and hence swivel seal retaining ring are different between the two types.

In my case I fitted new seals, the proper 12mm ones instead of the 8mm one I had fitted (I wasn't aware of the different sized when I originally fitted them) which is what was causing the problem :rolleyes: But as I didn't want to do the job again and had had sucess using gaskets on defender axles in the past i cut my own gaskets using the seal retaining rings as templates and stuck them on with a bit of RTV for good measure, so far all is oil tight.

FWIW I filled them with straight EP90. Will be keeping an eye on them as the jury is still out.

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I'd say that the CV joint has corrosion that is typical of being stationary in an environment where water is present. The bearings would be marked and pitted from the rust, but relatively clean. The rust would manifest itself more as excessive wear in the joint, rather than a layer of rust if it had been driven.

Oil and water or grease and water will mix together when warm enough to then be represented by the familiar 'emulsion'. From your pictures Ian, I would say that cv/driveshaft corrosion was cause either by water entering the swivel housing and then condensing, or getting in the housing while the vehicle was parked up.

Bright orange corrosion is again not typical of metal that is regularaly splashed with oil or grease, so this will have happened again while the vehicle was stationary. Metal that corrodes in an environment that is oil or greasy is usually black, as access to oxygen is considerably more restricted due to the prescence of the oil or grease. The rust is therefore graphite (or should that be graphited?)isn't it?

If water had entered the axle and then migrated to the swivel housing/hub assembly, I would have thought that there would be evidence of it in the axle case as well. There is indeed on the driveshaft and axle tube oil seal 'land, but does the corrosion extend to the inside driveshaft? The rust on the axle oil seal land wouldn't look like that if it happened while the vehicle had been driven - there would be a line where the seal was running, but then the rust is black as you would expect it be. Maybe therefore there was some rust before the vehicle was parked up, and it then continued, but in a different form, until you stripped it.

If the lip of the seal was ok, then that may not matter, if the tensioner band that sits inside the lip had corroded, then it's tension would be lost, and in that situation the lip of the seal would just 'be there', rather than pressing against the swivel ball.

Why did you strip the swivel, was there play in the pin bearings at all? Even a small amount of play would mean that the weight of the vehicle would press the swivel seal more in one area than the other. Even a small amount would allow water or condensation in over a period of time.

As for the oil vs grease debate - I would use grease on any vehicle other than a series motor, not for any really techinical reason - just that it'll stay in there better than oil if something goes wrong.

Les. :)

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I have just drained out the EP90 on my 110 CSW and rpelaced with one-shot grease. As mentioned on the Defnder forum, I found this job to be major PITA as the grease would not flow in properly and kepted getting airlocked in the filler tube and spewing out. This even continued after I decanted it into a bottle with a long nozzle. A real mucky job and I hope it really is a 'one-shot' procedure!

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personally...... (grabbing tin hat and cricket box) I'll stick with EP, its common to all the vehicles in the fleet, it gets changed daily and if it leaks its easy to spot, it also doubles up as a refreshing shower gel and adds a certain extra zing to camp cookery - women also find the smell irrestistable B)

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had grease went back to Oil

after stripping the N/S hub to fit Ashcroft CV's

I was surprised to fine next to no grease left in the swivel housing

it had all migrated to the diff through the seal(was brand new)

now I have just EP90 and check the levels regularly.

So for me it is EP

sod grease again

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had grease went back to Oil

after stripping the N/S hub to fit Ashcroft CV's

I was surprised to fine next to no grease left in the swivel housing

it had all migrated to the diff through the seal(was brand new)

now I have just EP90 and check the levels regularly.

So for me it is EP

sod grease again

You won't be able to say the same with the TD5 Tony ;)

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i use grease.

for ease of filling all have done is decant it into a squeeze bottle, stick that inside the kettle to warm it through . i normally chuck it in a hlaf full kettle a couple of mins after its boiled. you cant do this with the sachets they melt!

if i have stripped the hubs off then easiset way to add it is to then remove two of the stub axle bolts, one at the top the other half way up and squeeze the oild inthe lower.

If its all together then as Les says squeeze it through the normal hole but remove a swivel bolt to let the air out.

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Used oil for years and years until about 6 months ago. Had a long chat with my boss about it. He has been in the performance motor trade for over 40 years and reckons grease is the way to go. So I swapped to see what it was like. I use one and a third sachets per side with no probs - takes about three minutes to fill. I open the drain plug up once a fortnight to check for water ingress, check the amount of grease with a pen light and my ickle finger and I top up occasionally. I do add a table spoon of red line racing grease to each swivel occasionally...

Mind you, I haven't checked my new motor at all since I picked it up - think it's got grease in...

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Nope OIL

If water can get in, then oil can get out, grease can't

If you are very very particular re checking and ensuring grease has no oil with it then you may be ok, but ep90 (and I also add 140 heavy oil to mine for super sticky thick oil in the swivels - from when I had a PTO superwinch, they run 140W Gear Oil) flicks about and lubs IMHO better.

If you have a dogdy seal, gaskey end cap or swivel seal, then water getting in will soon be apparent as the oil leaks out, alsoi if you "Flush" the swivel after a whiz about you'll see if you have water from emulsified oils.

I have converted all mine x4 to Oil, and if I have been deep wading I'll check, as hot axles can easily suck water in, diffs as well.

Nige

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had grease went back to Oil

after stripping the N/S hub to fit Ashcroft CV's

I was surprised to fine next to no grease left in the swivel housing

it had all migrated to the diff through the seal(was brand new)

now I have just EP90 and check the levels regularly.

So for me it is EP

sod grease again

I am on the ''oil'' side, but oil will also migrate from the swivel housings to the diff housing. This is due to oil seals being designed to keep things in not keep things out. The swivel housing needs to breathe to accomodate temperature changes, but it is not fitted with a breather so excess pressure, along with a bit of lubricant escapes into the diff housing, which can breathe. To prevent this oil migration,and condensation you can fit breather fittings and hoses to each swivel housing, or do as I and a few others in Aus and the US do, and that is to give the inner axle seals the flick so that the diff, swivel housings and hubs share a common oil supply. Since I began doing this over 20 years ago I never had a hub seal failure even on the notoriously famous for leaking series 2 and 3 Landies.

Bill.

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As for the oil vs grease debate - I would use grease on any vehicle other than a series motor, not for any really techinical reason - just that it'll stay in there better than oil if something goes wrong.

Les. :)

It is only since LandRover began lubricating their hubs with grease that we have seen a huge increase in corrosion related failures to half shafts, driveflanges, wheel bearings etc. Aside from oil leaks and occasional breakage, these components lasted virtually forever on earlier oil lubed vehicles.

Bill.

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As this is a complete rebuild using all new parts including the swivel …………… I am on the same page as Bill and shall be using oil ………….its never let me down in the past. :)

With regard to the water in the swivel ………….. the damage indicates that the swivel was very low on oil and there had been water ingress at some stage……… I would suggest that this was shortly before it was parked up due to rear end accident damage. During the long period of inactivity the water separated from the oil and this led to high levels of condensation on the exposed parts …….. Les was in deed closest to my theory ……… the rust damage is actually minimal and some of the parts could have been reused after a good cleanup (not the CV) ……. However, to do the job properly it all gets renewed as this was always the plan.

It still served the purpose to show that the camp is split 50/50 on oil / grease

Ian

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Well, I pulled both mine this weekend and followed the 50/50 route:

Drained them both, put a sachet of one-shot grease in there and chased it down with about half a litre of EP90, until it reached the filler plug.

TBH since it was totally dry and I'd never topped it up I was gobsmacked when I pulled the pin and found oily greasy glop (and plenty of it). I was expecting the worst, and a bill for two CVs.

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  • 8 months later...

So I have to rebuild the front axle completely

does the panel suggest leaving swivel/stub axle seals in place or remove them

so the diff/swivel/wheel bearings share a common oil supply?

I'm concerned this could end up leaving one hub to run dry on slopes as the oil could drain taking its time to level out again across the axle, also a blown seal on one side could mean draining the entire axle as it leeches away.

I'm thinking to leave the stub axle seal out but the swivel seal in, grease the bearings on rebuild so the oil from the swivel will add to the grease for lubrication.

the rear axle the stub seal has obviously failed as oil/grease are mixed when I stripped the rear ARB out this week.

the bearings are in tip top condition

post-5-1180660069_thumb.jpg

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I'm thinking to leave the stub axle seal out but the swivel seal in, grease the bearings on rebuild so the oil from the swivel will add to the grease for lubrication.

the rear axle the stub seal has obviously failed as oil/grease are mixed when I stripped the rear ARB out this week.

the bearings are in tip top condition

That's exactly the way I do it Tony. Leave the swivel ball/axle shaft seal in place. The flow of oil to the bearings is very slow as it has to negaotiate the bronze cv bush first and then get past the outer bearing before being open to the cavity in the hub - it won't be a problem on side slopes. I just check the oil level every couple of months and sometimes have to add a dribble or so. The rear is the same, although on a 200tdi the outer hub seal needs to be removed too. Since I changed over to 80W140 synthetic oil for everything (except the LT77), I haven't had any problems with oil leaks, even in our summer temps (unlike when I used 80W90).

Paul :)

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