Grease: A highly versatile low-buck tool | From the Archives | Articles

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I’d like to add a few more caveats to this article. While I certainly agree that grease is very useful, you need to be mindful of where it’s going and what kind. Different kinds of rubbers and plastics are sensitive to different kinds of grease.

The upside is that you don’t have to be an engineer to figure it out: most manufacturers will post tables showing what kinds of grease are compatible with what kinds of rubbers, plastics, and applications. Just be sure to take a peek before you start slapping grease on parts.

Here’s a few examples:

I’ve been doing the same thing for some 50 years except I use Vaseline because it’s cleaner and if you can smear it on a babies butt, it must be safe for everything else.

I use this wonderful stuff from John Deere called Corn Head Grease.

It gets used in very specific applications. It’s a NLGI #0, thixotropic grease. It’s thick when not moving but thins out when moving.

JD recommends it for leaking combine gearboxes but it’s wonderful if you have any sort of gearbox with poor sealing that you would like to keep a lubricant in. I use it for antique car steering boxes, open planetary transmissions and even rear axles in brass era cars.

Much better than conventional grease in a gearbox because it won’t channel and leave gears without lubrication.

Would probably be great for old closed-knuckle 4wd front axles like Land Cruisers and early Jeeps used.

We use grease on two stroke base gaskets; makes them reusable.

In reply to Tom1200 :

I oil any paper gasket.

I find they seal better and come off cleaner later.