Lubricating the commentator

Roller type, motor oil every so often thru the oiler hole. Bush or flapper type, no lube. All type should be cleaned maybe once or twice a year or when ignition seems to be to be acting up and does not seem to be the coils.
 
i fill the flapper full of grease. Roller timers needed oil every 50 miles. Filling one with grease seems to have reduced that but it still likes grease or oil added once a month or it wears.
 
I think that the problem with this board is that too many of the commentators are lubricated :).
 
Roller timers get ruined because folks don't lubricate them properly. Ford recommended packing the timer with Vaseline, then oiling it at every gas fill up.


My grandfather tried packing the timer with wheel bearing grease. Our family has found that it works fabulously. Just use either brown or red grease, not the black grease that contains molybdenum which will short out the timer. I try and change the grease every 1000 miles or so. When you do this, there is no wear. None. Car runs great. Easy. Cheap. Simple.
 
Royce P said:
I pack it with grease.
Click to expand...

Royce, I was re reading your first posts and I had a question.

One time recently I could not get my t to start and later after some discussion I realized that I had "over oiled" the commutator. I had to clean it up and put some light oil on the surfaces and put it back together and it ran fine. I was using 80wt trying to achieve something similar to what you have done with grease. So with the grease option if you pack it full of this red grease I assume the the roller pushes things around so that it makes contact anyway. Do I understand this correctly?

Got any photos of how your unit looks when doing this operation?

When it gets hot I am guessing the red grease stays mostly in tact and does not leak all over under the engine?

We use some red grease on semi truck chassis, I am wondering if they are similar to each other.

thanks,

Mark
 
No, there is little to no leakage of the Mobil 28 grease. I have also used Mobil 1 synthetic automotive grease with equally good results, but I prefer the Mobil 28, perhaps because I occasionally get a free 5 pounder or two that reaches "expiration date" at the airport. They would rather give it away than have to pay for hazmat waste disposal!

I suspect that you are unable to "over oil" a timer. Perhaps you had a starting problem that you attributed to that, but realistically it's not possible. Certainly you can over oil a timer and make a significant mess, but the car would start and run just fine no matter how much oil you put in the timer.

Here's how the inside of a Ford roller timer that lasts forever looks:
timer3.jpg


41panelmark said:
Royce, I was re reading your first posts and I had a question.

One time recently I could not get my t to start and later after some discussion I realized that I had "over oiled" the commutator. I had to clean it up and put some light oil on the surfaces and put it back together and it ran fine. I was using 80wt trying to achieve something similar to what you have done with grease. So with the grease option if you pack it full of this red grease I assume the the roller pushes things around so that it makes contact anyway. Do I understand this correctly?

Got any photos of how your unit looks when doing this operation?

When it gets hot I am guessing the red grease stays mostly in tact and does not leak all over under the engine?

We use some red grease on semi truck chassis, I am wondering if they are similar to each other.

thanks,

Mark
Click to expand...
 
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