Gear box grease advice

[Babyalien]

Searched the forum for this answer but to no avail. Basically, I am going to get some lube's/oils together for the rebuild of my version 2 gearbox following the guide in a recent Airsoft International mag. The one thing in particular I wanted to know is the correct type of grease to use on the gears as they use a small tub of Castrol grease which I can buy but I have some Bisley Gun Grease kicking about which is used on my VSR. Can I safely use this on the gears/internals of my gearbox or am I best opting for the Castrol?

[spoon987]

I use silicon based lube around the piston and cylinder, and lithium moly grease on the gears. some types of grease are bad for the rubber around your piston head and hop.

[Babyalien]

Re: Gear box grease advice

Thanks. As it turns out after looking in to it following your post, lithium moly grease is the same grease used in vehicle CV joints. CV joint grease is a lithinum based grease with added Molybdenum Disulphide (moly) so this will work for the gears. also, for anyone else's knowledge also, the Bisley Gun Grease is Molybdenum Disulphide based so it looks like this will work too. Seems I can save a few pounds on this stuff then as I already have CV grease and the Bisley stuff.

[baddbaz]

Re: Gear box grease advice

Frog lube is the best for gearboxes. Slides etc

[spoon987]

what you've got will probs work fine then, the only thing I'll add, is the consistency of the grease is something to think off.

Some greases, as you will know, are thicker so they don't fling off the surface they are lubing. The automotive grease you have may be thicker than specific AEG greases, this can cause problems. As it can have the opposite desired effect causing more friction due to the gears being gummed up.

Also less is more with any grease, over doing it can have the same effect as above. And be sure to keep any grease that isn't silicon based away from rubber, I know there is a grease that is an exception to this rule but atm I can't remember what it is.

[Phatvortex]

Re: Gear box grease advice

what you've got will probs work fine then, the only thing I'll add, is the consistency of the grease is something to think off.

Some greases, as you will know, are thicker so they don't fling off the surface they are lubing. The automotive grease you have may be thicker than specific AEG greases, this can cause problems. As it can have the opposite desired effect causing more friction due to the gears being gummed up.

Also less is more with any grease, over doing it can have the same effect as above. And be sure to keep any grease that isn't silicon based away from rubber, I know there is a grease that is an exception to this rule but atm I can't remember what it is.

Think about what you're saying man! You don't want your gears to fling grease off, otherwise using grease in the first place would be entirely pointless!

If your grease gums your gears up and increases friction, then its clearly out of date/ contaminated, or you're accidentally using treacle. As the gears are operating the grease will heat up and thin slightly anyway, if it's too thin to start off with then it'll fling off.

I use lith moly as above and silicone for the cylinder- also as above. You can buy both from motor factors/ halfrauds/ motor world type places. Don't buy "airsoft grease" it's a massive rip off.

Buy some cheapy little paintbrushes to apply your gear grease, makes life easier and means you don't end up slapping shed-loads of it on.

[skullfacedinfidel]

Re: Gear box grease advice

Abby grease for gears!

and really really thick silicone grease for cylinder, called black swan - gives really good air compression need to shoot it without the barrel / hop unit on to makesure that if there is excess grease it doesn't go down the barrel, as it is a pain in the ass it clean.

ive over greased gears with thick silicone grease, and abby grease and under greased, never had a problem.

few tips though
polishing is your friend gearbox and gears!
and put your O-rings in 3in1 silicone oil, make sures it rubber friendly as i didn't once and leave it on a radiator or something, O-rings increase insize alot, helps with compression


EDIT: Also Bisley grease is too thick don't use it IMO, tried and won't recomend it. same as Teflon bike grease wouldn't used that either,

[BioSniper]

Re: Gear box grease advice

^ Agreed with the bit about Teflon Bike grease.
I've used it before, still have it in some of my guns, but it's just so thick and claggy and stuff slows down a bit, espescially if you over-use. Where I have found it good however, is on bolt action/pistol slides because it doesn't come off but allows smooth action.
So it'd an odd grease with limited applications. Probably not a problem if you aren't attempting higer than usual speed builds though.

Recently I've been using G&P grease, comes in a set of gear grease, Silicone Oil, Bearing oil. The gear grease is nice, but applys really thin and seems to get pushed out/off the gears really easily so needs re-applying regularly.

I've got some guarder Silicone grease on the way so I'll see how that holds up in the coming months as I am re-building the missus P90.

[Babyalien]

Re: Gear box grease advice

Thanks for the opinions people. I have now had a look in the Airsoft International mag I referred to previously. It would appear the Castrol grease they use is Castrol LM, which is short for Lithium Moly, the same stuff as the CV joint grease. The Abbey grease appears to also be a Moly Grease so suspect this to be the same as the CV joint grease though over-priced due to being labelled as Airsoft specific. I also suspect the Abbey grease to be the same as the Bisley, just relabelled which wouldn't be the first time I have seen this. Teflon Bike grease is not the same therefore I will avoid this given the feedback on it stated above.

I don't want to be re-applying regularly so I think I will be happy with the CV grease applied sparingly and as it is tolerable to high temperatures is should last some time combined with the high viscosity factor. Obviously this is grease appropriate for the gears so silicone lubes/grease will be used on the cylinder/o-rings. I already have some Abbey Silicone Spray and Airsoft International also recommend Silicone grease (tube) on o-rings/seals as this gives a better seal combined with Silicone grease (spray) for inside the cylinder but can also use pure Silicone spray lube for this. Then a little White Lithium grease for the piston guide rails or the Moly grease can be used for this as well.