Oliver 166 jointer bearings

[Mark Ames]

I've a 12" Oliver jointer, model 166 guessing late 1930s, and have been using it a lot recently. It's a direct drive, with bearings at the front and rear of the head. The bearing housings each have grease fittings, and opening up the front housing the front bearing is easily visible -- basically embedded is a whole bunch of old grease.

This approach to bearing lubrication seems odd to me. The housing is pretty big, you'd use up a tube of grease just filling it. A bit of searching on line and and I read that other 166's have bearings described as being in an "oil bath". Some of the pictures I'm seeing also clearly show the oil cups that would be used to fill and top-off the bearing housings with oil.

I'm speculating that some past owner of my machine removed the cups, installed grease fittings, and filled the housings with grease. If so, it seems like a bad switch, the worst part being that the grease may not work as well as having the bearings submerged in oil. Why would one do such a thing?

My inclination is to a) do a bit more research, and b) convert back to the original oil bath approach if my speculations can be confirmed.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated!

Mark

[Mel Fulks]

In the 60s I worked in a “mill” that had machines altered like you describe. I asked why they had been changed and was told that since the
newer stuff had grease fittings the thinking was to get all the maintenance more standardized. Didn’t make sense to me , but that was the
answer.

[Alex Zeller]

If it's 1930s are you sure they are not babbitt bearings? A babbitt is basically a metal on metal bearing. I think it was in the 50s that they started getting replaced with ball bearings. Back in the day if a babbitt was too loose you just melted some metal and made a new one. It's probably a lost art now.

[Andrew Hughes]

My thoughts are if it cuts good and sounds good don’t mess with it. My suggestion is to get the manual from rich eagle machinery. http://www.eaglemachinery-repair.com/
I have a 166 bd but it’s from 1960. Not sure I can help much
Good Luck

[Phillip Mitchell]

I have a 166 BD as well that is from 1940. It has an oil cup bath bearing in the front side of the cutterhead and a grease fitting on the back...go figure. I much prefer the oil cups and have always wanted to convert the rear one back to original configuration but always seem to have bigger fish to fry and other things to pay for and upgrade that take priority. My cutterhead was changed at some point in its life to a Terminus indexed cutterhead (same as Tersa basically.) and I’m a big fan of it.

I would imagine that sourcing the oil cups and “plumbing” for the conversion would be a bit of work, or maybe Rich at Eagle has those part in stock. Gotta imagine that it costs a few pennies from Eagle, though, as it should.

[Steve Rozmiarek]

My Oliver bandsaw had the grease zerks installed at some point too. It is a babbitt machine, so not the right thing for it. I've been able to scavenge up three oil cups, still looking for one. They were common on all the old machinery of the era and a few still do exist. You can find new ones too.

I think it was done to "modernize", or in some cases as a way to keep a machine running when an oil seal started leaking and they didn't want to replace it right then. I don't think it's very harmful as long as you use a good grease. No clay or other thickeners.

[Ron Selzer]

You could clean/flush the old grease out the best you can
Then fill with "corn head" or "cotton spindle grease" from a agriculture dealer, ie John Deere, Case IH, Agco who ever is handy to you
This is a O type grease which will act like oil when warm/hot flowing nicely yet when cool is a grease and a lot less likely to leak out
Commonly used on gearboxes on shredders/bush hogs when the seals start to go out.
Old farm trick
Ron

[Bill Dufour]

Bridgeport milling machines use zerk fittings for lubrication of sliding surfaces. But they are suposed to be used to pump oil in, not grease. It is simple to modify a grease gun to use oil.
Many unknowing users lube with grease which eventually dries up and freezes the movements.
Bill D

[Richard Coers]

If it's 1930s are you sure they are not babbitt bearings? A babbitt is basically a metal on metal bearing. I think it was in the 50s that they started getting replaced with ball bearings. Back in the day if a babbitt was too loose you just melted some metal and made a new one. It's probably a lost art now.
Not exactly. First it is not metal on metal. There is a lubrication film between the metals. Secondly, melting out the babbitt and pouring new was the last resort for a really well used machine. When new babbitt is initially poured, there are shims added to the seam between the cap and the housing. Then when the babbitt became slightly worn you took out a shim and then you would use bluing to identify tight spots. You would use a scraper and remove a couple thousandths and then repeat until you have a very uniform fit. You could do this multiple times before a new pour was needed. Usually when the oil grooves were almost gone. If these are babbitt bearings, here is great lube information. http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/BabbittLubrication.ashx

[David Kumm]

By the 1930s most Oliver machines had gone to ball bearings. Both would have been oil bath originally. Unlike Porter, Oliver did not use precision bearings in the jointers. I prefer open oil bath but you can likely swap to sealed depending on the bearing size. The bearings in a 12" machine should be small enough that the rated speed limit is well over 3600. If the speed rating of a sealed bearing is 50% higher than the running speed, I'd feel comfortable with sealed ABEC 3 Explorer type bearings. you want normal clearance, not C3. If you go with oil bath, keep in mind the filler cup needs to be at the proper height relative to the bearing location so filling the cup only fills the bottom third or less of the bearing. A bearing with too much oil just runs out the overflow or worse yet, stays in the bearing and overheats it. Dave