Electric drill leaking oil - salvageable?

[Jaguar Fan]

An acquaintance passed away a while back. His widow asked me to come take a look at tools in their garage. I didn't know him well.

Anyway, he has several newer and older corded drills that seem to be leaking oil.

Are they salvageable? or toast? One is a craftsman 4.5amp that as near as I can tell has never even been used - but when I pick it up out of its plastic carrying case there is blue oil - I guess a seal failed.

 

[omr]

probably just grease from the gear box, i would wipe it off and use it ..

 

[Danglerb]

My guess is oil spilled on them, so I would oriented them to fully drain out. Drills have grease inside, not oil, as far as I know.

 

[SSCustoms]

I have a Craftsman that has been doing that since I bought it in 1996. It has never skipped a beat!

 

[Hiball]

Is it getting hot? I suspect the grease is just breaking down.

 

[omr]

Is it getting hot? I suspect the grease is just breaking down.

agreed

 

[Benji]

My father has a Craftsman drill that has had some of the grease come out of it while sitting at different times over the years but it has never missed a beat. I have seen Black and Decker ones do this too. I'd run it.

 

[JimDon]

Stop fretting about the oil. Nothing wrong with the drill. The grease in the gear case will break down after a while and some oil will leak out the seams. Nothing to worry about. Wipe off the oil and use it. If you want, open up the gear case, wipe out the old stuff and put some new grease in it -- but don't pack it completely full of grease or you'll overheat it. Enough to keep the gears lubed up nicely. I have an older Craftsman jig saw that sounded like a frickin freight train it was so loud when you ran it. Seemed like the gears were getting ground to a pulp -- SO, I wiped out some of the old grease and packed in some synthetic disc brake lube. Really really slippery stuff. Put it back together and ran it in really well, and that dog gone jigsaw now sounds like Momma's Singer Sewing Machine -- WHAT A DIFFERENCE.
I love it now.
Cheers,
Jim Don

 

[Greatbear]

Most of my corded stuff is Milwaukee that I have had for 20+ years, and almost all of them have seeped "oil" from the gearboxes from the grease inside slowly breaking down. It's normal, and over time it is best to open up the tools, clear out the old grease and replace with new.

 

[american lockpicker]

My Bosch corded drill has done that since I got it.

 

[rsanter]

if they have been sitting for a while and exposed to temp changes then the grease is breaking down. if you want to keep and use them I would open the gear case and remove a bunch of the old grease and put new in.
once you let the grease break down like that and what remains in the gearcase gets kind of hard and crusty then the gears will have no lube

bob