Lubricating Motor
 

I have just finished cleaning the motor on my recently acquired 66-6, and want to lubricate the bearings. The manual, and other sources on the Internet, point to the tubes on the motor end caps, above the bearings, and say to fill them with grease with a low melting point, such as now-discontinued Singer grease or petroleum jelly. I tried filling the tubes using a syringe, but I'm finding that there is very little space available to hold the grease. There is something that fills the tubes to within 1/8 inch of the top of the tubes. Probing the inside of the tube, whatever is inside is not resilient, like you'd expect a felt wick to be. I guess the question is how much grease should I expect to be able to put in the tube for the motor's annual lubrication? Would this require disassembling the motor again, and flushing the tubes with kerosene?

Thanks.[ATTACH=CONFIG]609466[/ATTACH]

You opened and checked the wicks? The wicks doesn't have to be clean like new, but the old grease have to be soft enough to wick through, or rather being replaced. Wicks can sometimes be cleaned, but more easily replaced. If you add soft petroleum jelly (or the stuff like the Featherweight shop sells) once a year it should fill and wick fine when the motor warm up. It's nut much at all, and if you use a syringe you can see when it's full. It doesn't really have to be filled to the maximum to work.

Now is the time to clean and polish the exterior of the motor too, since it's off the machine you can easily get to it from every angle. I like the resin type car polish (the liquid type that dries to a whitish film you buff off) it does a good job lifting up traces of dirt and grime.

I have been through this over and over. In October they posted this video on their new grease. I might have to buy a tube.

To clean and check the wicks, would that have to be done from inside the end-caps of the motor, or are the tubes just press-fit into place and removable?

You have to open the motor to check, some wicks are still fine, but some are clogged up with hardened grease. The black bakelite screw on top are for the carbon brushes. When you open the motor , it will come appart, there is this small agular bit that lies in top of the motor (between the casing and the internal motor parts). It gives just the right spring action and keeps the parts stable. The ends of the turning part can be given a bit of grease directly, and yes, the wicks can only be checked from the inside. The motor is kept together with long screws with bolts at the end. The last motor I took appart was the later type with out the grease wicks, and I can't remember exactly the old motor on my 99 was. The grease wicks can have a metal cap on one side, some seem to have a spring coiled around the end. Some prefer the old motors which took grease, because they ran very nice and noislessly. Some of the later motors had a bit of a whirring sound in comparison, but there were several versions of these motors with smaller variations.

I just completed Nova Montgomery's one day class on cleaning Singer FWs. She addressed the motor issue and her motor lubricant has a tip that fits inside those openings. She had scientists work for 3 years on her formula. Check out her website, too, as maybe she has a video on lubricating the motor. I am not expert enough to advise on what you should do. I can tell you that when following her class instructions, old grease came out of the opening to be replaced by the new lubricant. I am not into taking old things apart and trying to get them back together unless there's no other way. IMHO

If I remember correctly, I think some of the wicks have a clip that is quite fragile (easily broken).

Janey - Neat people never make the exciting discoveries I do.

[QUOTE=mtboze;8217992]I have just finished cleaning the motor on my recently acquired 66-6, and want to lubricate the bearings. The manual, and other sources on the Internet, point to the tubes on the motor end caps, above the bearings, and say to fill them with grease with a low melting point, such as now-discontinued Singer grease or petroleum jelly. I tried filling the tubes using a syringe, but I'm finding that there is very little space available to hold the grease. There is something that fills the tubes to within 1/8 inch of the top of the tubes. Probing the inside of the tube, whatever is inside is not resilient, like you'd expect a felt wick to be. I guess the question is how much grease should I expect to be able to put in the tube for the motor's annual lubrication? Would this require disassembling the motor again, and flushing the tubes with kerosene?

Thanks.[ATTACH=CONFIG]609466[/ATTACH][/QUOTE

Check with [email protected]. He is very knowledgeable on old machines and motors.