Bearing Grease?

Life Cars & Motorcycles
1

I’ll be taking the rear brake hubs off for a look-see (they’re noisy) so I should probably re-pack the bearings while I’m at it. Anyone know what greases are available here?

I got some cheapo Chinese-labelled chassis grease (blue tub) from the all-night hardware store a few years ago. I think they may also have had bearing grease (green tub???), but in that application I’d prefer something I have heard of, and/or could read. Unfortunately I don’t remember seeing anything.

General purpose grease would be OK (though I believe people argue about whether there is such a thing).

IIRC CV joints like a bit of molybdenum, say 2%, but too much molybdenum (4-5%?) can cause bearings to skid and develop flat spots. That’s probably getting a bit too techy/picky for Taiwan though.

2

Any old crap will do on a 3 month replacement schedule.

3

Dunno if that’s true, but its academic anyway since I’m not replacing wheel bearing grease on a 3 month schedule.

Socks, maybe.

4

I’ve only seen the two types you mentioned. I’d go with the bearing grease because it’s got a higher breakdown temperature.

However, as I remember, there wasn’t a huge difference (the temps were marked on the containers), maybe just 100C difference or so.

5

Best place I know of in Tainan (Not good though;think it mostly deals with the building trade) had cartridges of “Mystical” lithium complex grease “for many purposes”, in EP and non-EP versions.

Don’t have a grease gun here so I don’t want a cartridge. Don’t have religion either, so a brand-name like “Mystical” doesn’t give me much confidence.

I think its meant to, though, since it sounds like this stuff

docs.mystiklubes.com/msds_pi/M20031.pdf

Which is apparently a top-spec American brand.

They also had a Chinese brand of “Cup Grease” , which I didn’t pay much attention to because I couldn’t remember hearing that term, and assumed it was something to do with plumbing.

Wikipedia says its grease thats added to a reservoir (cup) and fed from there to bearings, perhaps by gravity. However, according to this lot, its a calcium-based grease that can be used for automotive bearings.

easternpetroleum.in/cup_grease.html

Not sure I believe them though, since they also say “bearing grease” is sodium-based, which it can be, but isn’t always

easternpetroleum.in/wheel_be … rease.html

According to this thread, “cup grease” may have gone out of style in the US

bobistheoilguy.com/forums/ub … er=1567760

“If you decide to use grease try to find a hard oil cup grease. It is soap based and does not soften and run out with heat. Babbit doesn’t like the modern lithium grease. Don’t know anyone that offers it now except N.O.S. from an old Texaco dealer(Regal Starfak) or ebay.”

How come almost any automotive purchase in Taiwan turns into an industrial anthropology thesis?

reliabilityweb.com/art04/und … grease.htm

I’ll get the “Mystical” if I can’t find anything better, but I’ll take another trip to Kaoshiung first.

6

Kaoshiung scouting trip turned up a wide variety of products, but mostly in cartridges and of local origin. These may be perfectly OK, but it isn’t likely to be possible to find out much about them.

One tub, of “Liki Hara” grease, did say “Made Product American” on it.

Perhaps they mean they’d made the product seem American by writing bad English on the packaging, appealing to a more redneck customer base?

They seem to be pretty globalized, though, since a web search turns up The British Swiss Corporation (Taoyuan) as a source, ( for another of their products) which of course implies massive integrity and uber-anal attention to detail

jyc555.com.tw/ShowItem.php?i … 7572646b46

This was one of the few I found which gave any clue as to what was in it, though a rather enigmatic one

"Moly none (3%). "

I’d guess their made-American corporate lawyers have a lot of fun cooking up product descriptions like that.

Going to try main dealers. I have some hopes that Ford Liou Ho, for example, uses the same greases here that Ford uses everywhere else, though perhaps it’ll only come in 55gal drums

7

I showed them this stuff (Ford Premium Long Life Grease) at the local Ford Dealership service department.

mustangsunlimited.com/itemdy … T1=XG1C+01

Armed with that info, they were able to find a Castrol Grease website in Chinese, but, if I understood them correctly, they’d never heard of bearing grease, never used it, and didn’t understand why anyone would want to. :unamused:

Might be able to pull rank on them though, since their boss is an ex-student.

8

The Taiwanese brand has a badly drawn cement truck on it.

Chabuduo - it’s all cow oil.

9

I broke my rule last year and bought the most expensive stuff I could find, because it was the only recognisable brand I could find.

Only available in cartridge form, though, which is a pain, as the picture shows.

If its genuine it’ll be OK, but when I searched for 3M grease online recently the only hits were for spray stuff.

I’d now bet money this is fake.

Typed an email to 3M Hong Kong (Taiwan doesn’t do English, and…lets just say I have some cultural prejudice issues) hit the send, and got…

"We apologize for this inconvenience.

We are making updates to our site and it is currently unavailable. We have logged this error and are working to return service as soon as possible.

Error 101: Request has expired. Please resubmit within allotted timeframe."

Wonder how long its been doing that. More than whatever the “allotted timeframe” is, I’ll bet.

The error message apparently comes from a server in the USA, though, so I’ll have to widen my cultural prejudice horizons.

I suppose that’s what they mean when they say travel broadens the mind.