Planer Gear Oil

[Robert Waddell]

It is time to change the gear oil in my Delta 15 inch planer. I referred to the manual for oil type and it reads something like "use Delta extreme pressure gear oil that comes in pint cans and it takes 20 oz to fill the gear box".
Boy, I hope the the sales and marketing genius that thought of that line is getting pay what he's worth and he is not getting my money if I can help it.
After looking at manuals for other brands it seems most recommend use of 70-90 weight gear oils. My thought is to just fill it with something like 80W-90 and move on. Is there anything wrong with doing this? I figured I'd run it by some of you engineering types on here for your wisdom. Thanks for your insight.
Rob

[David Duke]

Rob, I have a 15" Jet and the spec for it is 50w gear oil.

[Jim Young]

50w gear oil.Good luck finding that. I searched this town (automotive capitol of US, we should have it right?) up and down for oil with that exact spec, seems it may not exist. Even the place that services Jet doesn't have it and can't get it. Instead I ended up using 85/140 oil fro mthe local car parts dealer.

I don't see why Delta would need anything different than Jet, so I would say just find a heavy weight oil.

[Dick Bringhurst]

I use 85/90 gear oil in my 15" planer. Got it a an autoparts store. The plastic bottle had a built in pump and flexible tube to make it easy to fill the gear box. Dick B.