Milling machine maintenance - oil, grease, cleaning, etc.

[FastKat]

Spent some time on my mill today and I have a couple questions:

1) I want to clean it before I move it to it's spot - what do I use? I was leaning towards Simple Green and a bunch of rags and then rinsing with water, but I'm not sure that's a good idea. I need something that will take off the grime and baked on oil, but won't ruin the machine or rust the bare metal.

2) What kind of oil should I use? There are several small ports to pour oil in, but I don't know exactly what kind to use. There's a tag and it looks like it says "20W" but I'm not sure what that is. Where do I buy it? I've heard of 20W-50 motor oil - is that the same thing?

3) There are a few grease zerks - two for the table, and two for the motor. Regular lithium grease here, as would be used on car suspension and drivetrain parts?

4) What should I use on the bare metal parts of the machine, like where the ram dovetails onto the base? Should I spray that periodically with WD-40 or something else?

 

[Rentawrench]

DONOT Grease it. You Tube can be your friend. Look here an search more BEFORE you do anything.

an also to give you some basics

 

[FastKat]

Great... guess I'll clean the grease out tomorrow! Suggestions? Just flush it with way oil?

Pretty sure the electric motor bearings were supposed to greased though.

 

[Graham08]

I would use something like kerosene, WD-40, or mineral spirits to clean the machine. That way you're not completely degreasing it, so anywhere that's missing a bit of paint or something won't start rusting. WD-40 is not a good rust inhibitor, but it's a pretty good solvent/cleaning agent...it's mostly kerosene.

Mobil Vactra #2 is a pretty standard way oil. I bought a gallon several years ago, and I'm still using out of the same gallon. I use it on all sliding surfaces. You can either buy an oil gun or modify a grease gun to lubricate the ways that have zerk fittings instead of oil cups or holes. Don't grease the ways! The grease attracts chips and grit, and accelerates wear on the ways.

For bare metal surfaces that aren't sliding, I like LPS #2. This is a lubricant that has anti-corrosion additives. It does a much better job at preventing rust than WD-40.

If you search on the Practical Machinist forum, you will find several long discussion threads about this stuff.

 

[justanengineer]

WD40 and common disposable kitchen "paper" towels (white, not bathroom brown kind) will handle most of the cleaning. Add in a squirt or two of brake cleaner and green scotchbrite for the tougher grime.

Regular disassembly and scrubbing is the only way to care for a machine properly as chips and **** will get into every lil crevice.

 

[Kevin54]

The paint on a lot of machines is not a high grade of paint. A lot of the products like Simple Green or Purple Power, Simple Green mainly, will actually strip the paint over a long period of time. I'm talking a few years, not overnight. Our shop actually quit using Simple Green for that very reason and switched to Purple Power. Mind you that both were "concentrated" and most didn't know that concentrated meant to use very little of the product compared to the water amount. 1:10 mixing ratio doesn't mean 10 parts of concentrated Simple Green to one part of water.

For the most part, WD-40 in a gallon is fairly cheap, but does a great job of softening and removing grime, and it will not strip the paint. BUT...if you plan on painting the machine later, you want to keep in mind that everything was wiped down with WD, so to prep a machine for painting, you want to use wax and grease remover a few times to get the WD off.

FastKat....I'ma thinkin' we are needing to see some pics

 

[Doug Arthurs]

Great... guess I'll clean the grease out tomorrow! Suggestions? Just flush it with way oil?

Pretty sure the electric motor bearings were supposed to greased though.

If you pumped grease into the fittings for the table ways you will need to remove the table clean the grooves and the oil ways with a piece of wire and blow air through it to make sure everything is clear.

 

[FastKat]

Thanks for the info guys. I'm going to try to work on it next week and will post pics!

If you pumped grease into the fittings for the table ways you will need to remove the table clean the grooves and the oil ways with a piece of wire and blow air through it to make sure everything is clear.

Yea, so I took a closer look and it looks like all the grease I pumped in only came out underneath the table around each handle, which is where I put the grease in. The ways and that round threaded bar were still wet with oil, not grease. I wiped away all of the grease I could see, and now I'm going to try pumping some oil through first and see what happens.


BTW, what do you guys recommend to pump the oil into the grease fittings? Is there a decent, inexpensive, and simple tool I can use?

 

[Doug Arthurs]

I couldn't find anything to pump oil I to a grease fitting so I took a cheap mini grease gun and adapted ot so it would hood oil. I just use it upside down and it seems to work well.