Oil Recommendation Review

I’m underway in the restoration of a 1950s era Leinen MLZ4SK tool room lathe and wanted to get a second look at the recommendations an oil supplier gave me.

The first category (A) is for the bronze spindle bearings with felt wicks.

The second category (B) is for the gearing in the headstock, the two speed transmission and the feed gearbox which has felt cord to lubricate the feed screw.

Below is the lubrication chart from the original manual.

iCloud

The supplier recommended:

A: Vista 10
B: ISO68 way oil ISO68 way oil

As I’ve made my way through this project and found information on the original lubricants specified these recommendations seem slightly off but I’m no expert on such matters and need some help.

Noteworthy is the difficulty in comparing oils specified in a Engler degrees at 20C as the conversion charts yield cSt at the same temperature and modern standards use 40C.

The only specified lubricant for column A I could find any information on was Gargoyle Velocite E oil. A few posts suggest it appears to be closest to an ISO 2 oil which casts doubt on their recommendation.

For column B, my reading suggests Shell Vitrea 31 has an ISO name of Vitrea Oil 46 implying that any ISO VG 46 grade circulating oil without EP additives should suffice given the various bronze bushings throughout. I gather an ISO 68 way oil could work but I’m unsure if it has any negative effect on the wicking properties of the felt cord used to lubricate the feed screw. Maybe ISO VG 68 way oil is close enough but an ISO VG 46 would be proper?

I concede that I very well may be obsessing about this too much but oil isn’t expensive compared to replacing the bronze bearings or various other components.

Any help would be very appreciated.

-Ben

If Mobil readily available there Mobil Velocite 10 and Mobil DTE Medium

Response from Shell UK

Shell’s UK help desk provided me a response that I think others might find useful. Their help-desk was very easy to work with. Additionally, they have a chat bot that has regional specific variants and names that can be resolved directly.

Any way, I emailed them the full oil spec sheet from my manual and gave some operating characteristics and they responded with the follow:

Hi Ben,

Kindly see additional information and comments below regarding the old Shell grades. Please note that since these are very old grades, the current recommended products will have to depend on the actual application as well as the OEM specification requirements.

Shell Oil JY 1 - an old spindle oil with approx 9 cSt viscosity at 40°C. Morlina S2 BL 10 may be a possible alternative.

Vitrea 13 – non-additive machine and bearing oil with viscosity of 12.1 cSt at 40°C. Morlina S2 BL 10 may be a possible alternative.

Shell Voltol II - renamed Voltol 46. It was a multifunction (HLP/CLP/CGLP), VG 46 oil. We would typically recommend the following for applications where this product was prescribed, depending on the specific function.
-> HLP > Shell Tellus S2 MX 46 (hydraulic oil)
-> CLP -> Shell Omala S2 GX 68 (gear oil)
-> CGLP -> Shell Tonna S2 M 68 (bed track oil/ multifunctional oil)

As mentioned, the recommendation will largely depend on the application requirements and we may be able to consider Morlina S2 B 68 in this specific application but would check the EP (extreme pressure) requirements. If EP performance is required but bronze is a concern, Shell Morlina S4 B 68 may also be an option.

Vitrea 31 – if the equipment is pre-1978, the current replacement grade will be Morlina S2 B 68. If after this date, kindly verify the name of the product as we had no viscosity grade 31 after this date.

Hope this helps.

Best Regards,
Cindy
Technical Helpdesk Advisor
United Kingdom

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All in all, the original recommendations were pretty spot on as far as I can see.