Fitting upgraded Axles, CVs and converting to oil lubed hubs

**rick130** · 6th May 2013, 09:23 PM

Originally Posted by Loubrey

Rick,

What grease would you recommend as a better dedicated CV grease?

It's been a while since I've worked on the front CV's, but my cars have all been 300Tdi and newer and I've always used the 'one shot' stuff. Always keen to look at better options as regardless of the price of more expensive grease, it will never get close to the price and effort of replacing worn parts...

Cheers,

Lou

Lou, the ones I know that are very, very good are too thick for Landy CV's IMO as they are all NLGI 1 or 2 greases, the same consistency as normal chassis or wheel bearing grease.

The best one I've ever used is superseded now and highly 'unfashionable' (read, potentially toxic and environmentally unsuitable) as one of the major EP additives is lead napthanate, on top of the MoS2 and graphite it contains in copious doses alongside a heavy ester base oil.
It probably has antimony and all sorts of other goodies too.
It was developed for the 1500cc turbo F1 cars in the eighties.
Not sure what the soap/thickener was in that one. (I still have a small amount left)

I've thought of trying some CAT Arctic Platinum grease as it's an NLGI 0 grease with 5% moly and uses a calcium sulfonate thickener (brilliant for rust/corrosion prevention) but it still only rates around a 65lb Timken OK load rating. (which is well above the One Shot @ 35-40lb)
4 ball weld point is double for the CAT grease too at 615kg.

All the exotic/toxic additives are illegal now, and for good reasons too, we damned near used to bathe in the stuff.

Standard CV's are glass hard for a reason, it means pretty much zero wear over their life but they won't take huge shock loads as they are so hard.

Ashcrofts and KAM's CV's use premium steels but are tempered to a lower RC number so they don't go BANG under shock loading, but wear (deform) much faster (compared to a stock CV) as they are softer.

This is where I think a better CV grease or HD oil containing suspended solid lubricants or soluble EP compounds may help.

Hmm, Redline Heavy Weight Shockproof gear oil might be the ticket, it's heavily overbased with suspended calcium, although I've been told it's not great from a moisture POV.

**mools** · 6th May 2013, 09:41 PM

Lou,

For what it's worth Ashcroft recommend this stuff...

Morris Lubricants K48 moly EP Grease.

"...manufactured from a Lithium soap base and highly refined mineral oil, with added Molybdenum Disulphide to provide protection against seizure in conditions when ordinary greases would fail. Also included in this grease are additives to stop corrosion, rust and oxidation. Additionally this grease shows excellent resistance to severe mechanical working."

Then filling the swivel housing with one shot.

(Shamelessly lifted from their website)

Ian.

**rick130** · 7th May 2013, 06:30 AM

Originally Posted by mools

Lou,

For what it's worth Ashcroft recommend this stuff...

Morris Lubricants K48 moly EP Grease.

Ian.

That's just an average, lightly Moly fortified (only 1%) NLGI 2, Li complex grease and doesn't have as much moly as, say Castrol LMM. (3% MoS2, Li complex soap and which I've used forever in sliding splines, ball joints and uni's)

It's nothing flash and not on a par with CAT Arctic Platinum (NLGI 0) or Desert Gold (NLGI 2) greases which use full synthetic base oils, use a brilliant soap/thickener to eliminate water washout and corrosion (excellent for exposed joints, ball joints, splines, etc) and have 5% MoS2 (5% is the maximum amount of moly able to be used in a grease, any more is actually useless)

Most all blenders make some exceptional greases, usually aimed at the mining industry.

**Ancient Mariner** · 7th May 2013, 06:56 AM

FX diff

**roverrescue** · 7th May 2013, 07:00 AM

Rick,

I have used Castrol LMM or Castrol Marine forever.
Just the other day the bearing gun ran dry so off I went to the local "I sell everything shop"

He now stocks GulfWestern the "'Stralian" product.
I was umming and arring over the Gulf Western 'Mining Heavy Duty' vs their 'Marine' offering.
Do you have any insights on which would be best for wheel bearings etc etc (think boat trailer bearings and servicing tojos/ canters/ patrols wheel bearings)

Ill stick with the LMM for sliding joints and CVs... Just because I still have plenty.

S

**Bush65** · 7th May 2013, 10:05 AM

I have lingering doubts about grease staying inside a Land Rover cv at high rpm where it is needed, vs a good ep oil filled to the correct level.

**mools** · 7th May 2013, 02:10 PM

Originally Posted by Bush65

I have lingering doubts about grease staying inside a Land Rover cv at high rpm where it is needed, vs a good ep oil filled to the correct level.

Landrover swivels have been grease lubed for quite some time now and there doesn't seem to have been loads of cases of worn out CV's. Perhaps that's due to useing the one shot which, as Rick states, is pretty much liquid at room temp so won't suffer that particular problem. I don't think anyone is suggesting using high viscosity grease alone.

I'm returning to the idea of drilling and tapping the drive flanges.

Ian.

**Sitec** · 7th May 2013, 07:24 PM

Just reading on, I decided to run the oil in mine with the Ashcroft CV's. interesting point about them wearing faster as they are not 'glass' hard... How much faster??

.. Re oils, in the Ag industry we have something called EPLO which is like a seriously thick gear oil. It gets used in rotary hoe gearboxes etc and I'm told can put up with a fair hammering whilst remaining very 'sticky'... Will look at the spec on the drum tomorrow!

**rick130** · 7th May 2013, 07:35 PM

Originally Posted by roverrescue

Rick,

I have used Castrol LMM or Castrol Marine forever.
Just the other day the bearing gun ran dry so off I went to the local "I sell everything shop"

He now stocks GulfWestern the "'Stralian" product.
I was umming and arring over the Gulf Western 'Mining Heavy Duty' vs their 'Marine' offering.
Do you have any insights on which would be best for wheel bearings etc etc (think boat trailer bearings and servicing tojos/ canters/ patrols wheel bearings)

Ill stick with the LMM for sliding joints and CVs... Just because I still have plenty.

S

Steve, I've never had a ball joint, king pin or sliding joint wear out when using LMM and yet it isn't that flash on the spec sheet

I've pretty much switched over to CAT Desert Gold for the cars, I'll just use the LMM up on the quad and tractor, although IIRC I think I used the CAT grease all over the tractor last time

**rick130** · 7th May 2013, 07:54 PM

Originally Posted by Bush65

I have lingering doubts about grease staying inside a Land Rover cv at high rpm where it is needed, vs a good ep oil filled to the correct level.

It was never an issue in F1, Champ Car and Sports cars when they used to run CV's and I think their rotational speeds were a tad higher than anything we'll ever drive

OK, ok, they had boots, but if the grease was centrifuging out it would've ended up in the boots, and I never saw that with the CV's on the tiddler open wheelers I looked after either, they were always full of grease where it needed to be and they saw up to 250km/h with only 13" rims.

The Land Rover CV's are only seeing (relatively) high RPM's when driving in a straight line, we're all only doing low RPM's at high steering angles where stuff may be flung clear of the body.

TLC's and Patrols all use grease in their CV's too and they don't seem to die premature deaths.

We often run around with the hubs locked on the Patrol at speeds up 120km/h and I haven't re-packed the CV's for well over 200,000km.

As I said previously, I'd prefer to run a high EP oil but most gear oils don't have the load carrying ability and definitely not the shock load capability of an application specific grease, contrary to what the cognoscenti continue to claim across the forums.
Redline's Shockproof may be the exception, and there will be a few others too, but they aren't run of the mill GL5 diff fluids.

Thread: Fitting upgraded Axles, CVs and converting to oil lubed hubs

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