On the Morgan Three Wheeler Racing facebook page recently someone asked a question what grease they used in the bevel boxes of their Morgans.
This is the old 2 and 3 speeder Morgans, not 5 speeders.
A reply came back:
"He used to use Castrol Impérvia MMO which was brilliant. No longer available. For the past 10 years he has been using a semi fluid grease Millers Delta 00EP (see photo). It seems to work fine and does not leak out much". I am ignoring the leak comment for the moment !
Now I am very aware early 5 speeder quaif boxes had what was described at the time as 'a brown gunky grease' supplied on delivery , with poor results.
To my knowledge it was never determined exactly what this was, most owners flushing it out, and replacing with heavy oils which I still use to date.
Having done some research ( i.e. googling about ) on applications for semi fluid grease, motor applications do include differentials and bevel boxes.
The EP stands for extreme pressure, like the oils we are used to.
The 00 in front of the EP is the grade of the grease, the NLGI number ( National Lubricating Grease Number) .
From Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NLGI_consistency_number a simplified table of grease grades is available.
NLGI number Appearance Consistency food analog
000 fluid cooking oil
00 semi-fluid apple sauce
0 very soft brown mustard
1 soft tomato paste
2 "normal" grease peanut butter
3 firm vegetable shortening
4 very firm frozen yogurt
5 hard smooth pâté
6. very hard cheddar cheese
I am wondering if the first generation of quiafe boxes were filled with too hard a grease, which didnt lubricate sufficiently.
And would a lower NLGI number with a semi fluid consistency , as used by the older Morgan racers, might be beneficial and quieten and cool things down a bit?
I am very temped at next oil change too try some 00EP as a controlled experiment , a brown mustard or even apple sauce !!!!
I was wondering if anyone has been down this route before and tried semi fluid grease in a quaif box, rather than oil ?
Thanks
