1941 western radial arm drill press. Oil vs grease for speed gears??

Hi guys i have this western radial arm drill press from 1941. Very little use and just about to finally get it ready for operation. Im changing out oil in everything and i need some people to tell me what they think i should use for lubrication in the speed selector housing.
I removed both front and rear covers to find old ass grease that was black and hard like a wax or some kind. Spent all day cleaning that crap out of there and off all the gears. In addition to the black stuff i think there was a different type grease in there too (not certain could be same stuff as black just not solidified) and must have had a graphite or some additive. Almost looked like fine metal particles everywhwere.

So im not finding in the manual where it says to use anything specific in the gear box.
As pictured, i have two oil cups at the top of the head that drip oil down into small holes in a bronze block that rides half way around two gears. Each oil cup goes to each bronze cavity. So im thinking no grease in this gear box, just oil from those oil caps each time i use it?

Seems like i would worry about wether or not i have enough lubrication for everything just doing that. Of course id squirt oil all over everything first before screwing the covers back on but just wondering what others would do????

If i grease the gears what do i use? And can i still oil the cups if i use grease or do we not want mixing to occur?

Thanks so much. This thing is in such good shape i def. dont want to ruin it.

And to add to the problem. The almuminum caps on top of the head that hold the bearings are greased by the previous owner. So instead of oiling those bearings and having the residual oil drip from the bearings down into the gear box to help lubricate the gears i have the grease in the way. So if i go with oil in this box i may want to clean the grease out of the bearings on top of the head .

Iso 68 good??? I got a whole pail of mobile dte 26 that i want to utilize if possible

Damn was hoping for a few responses by now. Well im just going to oil it with the moble dte 26 (iso 68) and hope thats good enough. Someone please post if u think these gears need more oil than what might be provided in there. Im gonna oil everything up real good with a coating on all the gears but its just the oil caps on top of the head after that.

What about spraying it down with open gear lube ?

I dont even know what open gear lube is. Ill do some reasearch. Either way, the bearings above need lubricated with oil as i ended up cleaning all the grease from them (in the top of the head). So if i end up going back and using a grease then it will inevitably mix with oil slightly over time. Idk it this is a poblem or not.

By the way i got the motor starter in the mail yesterday and got this machine up and running all the way finally. Sweet sounding machine. Seems pretty darn smooth. Power down feed and everything is pretty easy to use. Only question i have on operation is if i can power feed (up) and when the spindle reaches the top is it going to stop power feed up on its own or will i shred the gear train apart. I will eventually power tap and i dont want any close calls!!!

I got 40-2000 rpm with this thing

Do the upper bearings get any oil at all from splash in the gearbox? Maybe if they dont have a way to be oiled while running the grease is a better way to go.

I had a Town radial with a similar vertical gear setup........and because the oil pump had failed ,the top gears were shot........the lower gears running in oil were like new.....I dont see how this setup could work without at least drip feed oilers.

It's a good question, you don't know if the plate can be sealed well enough to hold oil or if there are good seals on the bottom bearings to keep it from running out, and when you said it had old grease in it that suggested to me that either grease was the original call out or that the old owners couldn't keep oil in it.
I have a Havir shaper with helical gears on three shafts running horizontally, and was surprised to read the company recommendation to run grease on them. I mention that because it would probably be easier to keep oil in it than in the box in the pictures.

The upper bearings dont get splash oil because they have oil drip caps at the top of the head as u can see on top of each cast aluminum cap. There are three.
When oiling those top bearings, the oil will inevitably drip through the bearing and onto the gear shafts below. But prob only a negligable amount since only a pump or two of oil from a oil can goes into each oil drip cap.

I know this machine has a oil pump on it because thats what the manual says, but im pretty sure that oil pump doesnt make it to the vertical gear gase pictured above. Prob meant for the gear box just below it that holds possibly the precision spindle bearings and additional speed change gear (one of the three speed change levers goes directly into that lower gear box). i have that lower gear box full of iso 68 mobile dtf 26.

If it has oil cups, that is how it is designed to be used. You fill the cups before every use and check during the day to make sure they aren't empty. DO NOT use grease anywhere in the gearbox if it has cups.

As you have discovered, a lot of folks think grease is a better way to go, because it doesn't drip all over like oil and you don't have to constantly check it like the cups. You get two benefits because you don't have a mess and you never check the grease until, like you discover, it turns black and hard and is totally useless as a lubricant. The bearings are clearanced and designed to run oil. The drip cups are a total loss oil system that changes itself and washes out wear particles as the machine runs. Yes it is messy and yes it requires attention. That was expected of a machinist in the early 20th century. You cleaned up the mess and oiled the machine every day.

Filling that case with grease is the equivalent of packing the transmission and engine crank case in your car with grease instead of running oil. It's great, you just check the dipstick to make sure there is grease on it.....

The Havir shaper I mentioned has oil cups for the ram ways yet the gears were to be greased. Obviously these cups lose oil downward into the main case.

I agree that grease can be a problem with time and the only reason I can see as to why they didn't seal the sump and install a pump, well, economics is all I can see.

To stay with the shaper analogy, the South Bend 7" shaper has a sealed sump plus a pump, yet the sample I worked on had scored ram ways because they didn't get the oil the system was meant to service, so in that example the existence of a pump condemned the machine to negligent lubrication because it encouraged the ignoring of the ways.
BTW, it has oil cups too I believe but the oil system is described as doing the way oiling.
Given that, grease with scheduled replacement is not a bad lubrication method, especially with synthetic greases available now.

I'd think that an oil pump system that doesn't oil the top gears without an "Oil daily" plaque for the top end would be bad too for the same reason. If the manual says oil daily or hourly that takes care of it, the automatic oiling is for another area lower.
Just imagining here, if the oil delivery were placed high enough it would seem to me that everything below that would get oil, so I wonder why they didn't take the piping to the top above the gears.
I'm just noodling on these things, not arguing with anyone, I've seen good oiling systems and bad, and it's always safer to assume at first that an oiling system is bad.

P.S. Above I mentioned grease but did not intend it to be meant for the shaper ram ways.

not suggesting you use it or not.... but open gear lube is a black, gooey , stringy
moly grease that clings to gear teeth without slinging off . kinda' like the
glue on flypaper or thick molasses . you only apply it sparingly to the teeth and it
stays on for a long time . not something you'd fill a gearbox with.

you DON't want to get this shit on your hands or clothes.

Open gear lube does sound like a great option but also adding additional oil drip ports or my own custom oil sump (outside the machine) plus drip/ spray pump to help lubricate better than the original desing sounds great!

Idk if this is something anyone has done or not and if its even worth it for the extra life out of the gear train.

I suggest going with oil. The shafts the gears run on have oil grooves. Chances are there are some bronze bushings in some of the gear hubs. For this reason, do NOT use modern automotive gear lubricants. These have additives which can attack "yellow metals" (i.e., bronze and brass parts). The big question is whether the gearbox is modern enough to have oil seals on shifter lever shafts and on the shafts themselves. I'd go with an ISO 46 or 68 oil. These are straight weight mineral based oils without additives beyond possibly corrosion inhibitors and anti-foam additives. I use Tractor Hydraulic Oil, ISO 46 in my machine tools and have done so for years. Tractor Hydraulic Oil, when purchased in a "straight weight" such as ISO 46 or 68, is basically a "DTE" series oil. DTE is an ancient designation meaning "Dynamo, Turbine, Engine", and is still used in industrial lubricant designations in powerplants and similar. Back in the 40's, machine tool builders would sometimes spec a "20 weight" or similar automobile engine oil, but this was in the days of non-detergent oils with few additives.

I would avoid the open gear lube as this is for what the name says, and is usually used on slower speed gearing on machinery such as presses, or on heavy equipment such as gears in a crane.

A lot of the older machine tool gearcases were designed to have the oil slung around by the gearing and into troughs or oil ports. Going to too heavy an oil will often result in it being slung out around shaft and shifters that go thru the casing. A thinner oil, while sounding wrong for the application, is actually what works better. You can add something like "Lucas Oil Extender" to the oil, as this simply adds "tackifiers" to the oil. It will help the oil develop "cling" and be a bit better at keeping a film on the gear teeth while still leaving the oil thin enough to sling and get into the oil ports, oil grooves and similar.

I would not monkey around with mixing greases and oils, nor with the open gear lube. I've used the open gear lube (known as "Crater Compound", or "Black Bear") on gearing on 1920's bridge cranes in old powerplants, and have seen it used on heavy equipment gearing (older construction cranes) and on wire rope on cranes. The stuff is great for those applications, but murder to get off anything else. It is also stick as all get-out, and any dust, dirt, swarf, etc- once the open gear lube gets warm- will stick to it like fly paper.

Basic DTE series oil is all I would use in that drill's gearcase and in the oil cups. It is pretty much what the manufacturers would have spec'd. in the 40's, or been even more general with a spec such as: "Use a good grade of automobile engine oil, SAE 20 or 30 weight." Over time, some of the machine tool builders revised this sort of spec when it became apparent the heavier bodied oils were slinging out of any available route from the gearcases. Old machine tool designs often did not include oil seals, and relied on "oil dams" (a kind of "stovepipe") around vertical shafts to maintain oil levels, and kept oil levels below any shaft or shift shaft penetrations out the sides of the gear cases. With heavier bodied oils, it soon became apparent that in service when running at whatever the higher spindle speeds were, the heavier oils slung out of the gear cases. The specs were revised to something like 20 weight or DTE Light oils.

These have additives which can attack "yellow metals" (i.e., bronze and brass parts).

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Just a comment, many of the GL-5 gear oils I'm using these days don't attack yellow metals anymore. They were reformulated some years ago. That's why I can use GL-5 in transmissions that once only called for GL-3.

As Joe Michaels says, the plain bearings in that machine are clearanced for oils and probably have oil grooves in them. Put grease in the machine and, just like the old Dreses radial drill I rebuilt at the museum 15 years ago, you'll be cleaning out the grooves with a chisel and hammer, if the bearing is even halfway salvageable. Most were so wallowed they were scrap. The gear wear on that machine wasn't due to lack of oil on the gears, it was the wallowed bushings that let the gears flail around that ruined them. It was designed to run with total loss oil and has lasted about 75 years that way, a portion of which was probably in 24/7 wartime production during WWII. If it lasted that long, then put back the right way, it should last 1000yrs in a reduced duty environment.

Looks like you have room in there for a small oil pump. Either gear driven or maybe off of a cam driven plunger pump attached to the shaft.
If I can make it better, I see no reason not to.

The mention of wallowed bushings at the top end indicated the top bushings didn't get enough lubricant. Probably during that war period with unskilled labor and the whole emergency climate they worked three shifts a day for 3-4 years in.
I'm very impressed with modern Japanese designed auto engines, pressure lubed hardened cam shafts running in aluminum bearings seem to last forever, and the whole engine seems designed that way. "They don't make them like they used to" but they didn't last for 2-5 hundred K miles then like they do now.
If that box had a pump as rj1939 said, and piped to eliminate the need for cups at the top those gears would probably not be worn out, dump oil at the blind plain bearing so it flows downward, and splash helped by gravity would do the rest.
It would be nice to know what the manual said about lubrication that box.

"As pictured, i have two oil cups at the top of the head that drip oil down into small holes in a bronze block that rides half way around two gears. Each oil cup goes to each bronze cavity. So im thinking no grease in this gear box, just oil from those oil caps each time i use it?"
I have a gearhead drill press that has two oil cups at the top like that, 1970 maybe, well, I wanted to know what was inside so I took the case halves apart, the oil drips to no where important, seemingly for looks. The bearings are all sealed ball bearings and one out of every gear set is phenolic, no oil at all on any of the gears. Maybe some of the oil makes it's way to the gear selector sliders, but that's all, and the gearbox is a dry box.
So if the box shown has bronze bearings at the top that's sad if they don't get oil, emphasis on the need to force oneself to disciplined oiling.

This discussion is similar to the ones that old car and tractor collectors have.
The problem with grease is that it is non-flowing. If you open a can of grease, run a finger through it, close it up, and open it again in a year, the furrow you made in the grease will still be there.
There is a 'non-rigid' grease, or a flowing grease. It will settle with gravity, so a gear does not just cut a furrow in the grease, then run dry due to nothing in touch with the rotating parts.
Oil is the best to start with. If you have non-sealed shafts, the oil will show you that. For shift shafts, you can fit them with an O-ring, and that will usually suffice. For revolving shafts, machining for a lip seal is best, but can be incredibly involved. Sometimes just replacing the the lost oil is by far the best method.

Check oil and lubricant suppliers for 'steam-cylinder oil'. It is available in 500wt and put to 1200wt viscosities. Old straight gear transmissions were designed to run with 1200wt oil. Non-flowing grease will kill them quickly.

The problem with 'yellow metals' is another discussion subject. GL1, straight mineral oil is the right way to go. ANY HP [high pressure] lubricant will have sulphur compounds, and the sulphur attacks brass, bronze, copper. It is safer to use straight mineral oil if gear oil a GL1.

DV