Drill and Saw Lubrication?

[1saxman]

I have an old Craftsman plug-in 3/8" drill and 7" circular saw. The drill is over 40 and the saw is over 30 years old. I bought both new and they have had very light use. They both work fine. I'm just wondering if there is supposed to be grease in the gear cases for them, particularly the saw, which is a lot noisier than it used to be on the 'coast-down' - kinda like dragging a big cat by his tail down a corrugated drainage pipe. I've never opened either case up to see what's in there . I'm gearing up to replace the wooden steps to my front porch (deck-type) and I will be using these tools.

 

[EchoOfGecko]

I just use spray lithium grease occasionally. That and keep it clean.

 

[PFSard]

I wouldn't be surprised to find that the grease has hardened. And/or the gears have spun the grease off. I picked up an old Craftsman 3/8" drill at a yard sale that was loud. Cleaned out the gears and re-lubed. Quieted right down.

 

[American Locomotive]

Grease doesn't last forever, and at some point it will start to turn to wax. It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to take them both apart, clean out the old grease, and load them up with a nice high end moly grease.

 

[rlitman]

Exactly. Just don't add more grease to a gearbox unless you know for sure that what you're adding is compatible. Otherwise, remove all grease before re-greasing. And remember that you don't want to pack it solid.

 

[1saxman]

Thanks, guys. Good stuff.

 

[fishwatcher]

I have an old Black and Decker circular saw that I got from an uncle who is now 102 years old. The blade was pretty old, so I swapped it out with a new one from Dewalt. but is very loud and sounds super dry. Of course I searched on GJ and found this thread.

After taking it apart though, what exactly should I grease? YouTube was my next stop and I found this useful video.

When I have some time to kill, this will be my next project.

 

[The Cobbler]

both are easily disassembled . cleaned & re greased. like mentioned, don't over fill the gear cases . inspect the arbors of the tools for bad wear , broken/missing splines . your tool has low life left if it has badly worn or missing splines

 

[RTM]

The circ saw supposedly is lifetime lubed. But I suspect in 1982 they did not expect 42 more years out of it.

Black & Decker : Catalog 323 : Rev. 5/83 : Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc. : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

32 p., illus., 21.6 cm, trade catalog

archive.org

.

Found a manual on Scribd that said the same thing, but it froze up before I could read it.