Operated Grease
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Operated Grease
What is Lubrication Grease?
Well the short answer is that grease is a lubricant added to a thickening agent to form a semi-solid lubricating product and that's an okay answer but really…grease is sooo much more!
Human beings have been lubricating (greasing) things for millennia. The earliest greases were simply animal and vegetable fats. And guess what! These sorts of greases are still used for certain things.
These days though when someone asks about lubricating grease they are usually referring to a product used to lubricate closed bearing systems or other closed or hard to lubricate devices such as pivot points on steering gear or heavy equipment.
The base oil or lubricant portion of grease is most commonly either petroleum or synthetic oil of varying viscosities although there are other less well know base lubricants used in grease, mostly for industrial applications such as silicones and flouroether's
The base oil of grease is generally the first consideration when choosing grease for a particular application. The things to be considered when choosing grease are, operating speed, the temperature range that the machinery operates and total load.
Now on to thickening agents, the stuff that makes a base oil "look" like grease. By far the most common thickening agent is lithium soap, the term "soap" indicating a metallic salt of a fatty acid. This metallic salt forms an emulsion with the base oil, meaning they are mixed together but not chemically combined.
Aside from lithium, there are many different thickening agents that allow grease to be tailored for thousands of different applications. These include other metallic soaps such as calcium, sodium and, aluminum.
These in turn can be mixed with complexing agents to form lithium complex, calcium complex or aluminum complex greases. Complexing agents add stability and performance increases like increasing the high and low temperature performance of the grease or make it more water resistant.
Some non-metallic soap thickening agents are various polymers, polyurea's, organic clay's, silica and carbon black
Now on to the additive package. When grease is designed various additive are mixed in to make the grease work well under different conditions.
Marine grease designed for a salt water environment for example will incorporate powerful rust and corrosion inhibitors. Grease used in high temperature applications will often incorporate oxidation inhibitors to keep the grease from degrading under the effects of heat. Grease's meant for extreme pressure situations will generally include some form of solid lubricant such as molybdenum or graphite. The solids form a sacrificial layer under extreme pressure and high loads that help prevent metal to metal contact and the attendant wear that causes.
Grease that is designed to be used on open gears or unsealed hinge points will sometimes incorporate a takifying agent to cause it to cling to the metal surface and not be slung off in the case of open gears or squeezed out so readily in the case of hinge points on equipment that have high loads such as the hinge points on the arm of a backhoe.
Actually, properly formulated grease's will usually have a combination of these additives. Oxidation inhibitors, rust and corrosion inhibitors, anti-wear ingredients like zinc or extreme pressure additives like molybdenum to make the finished product a well rounded one that performs its function well.
A great example of well rounded grease designed for a specific commercial use is Amsoil's new synthetic polymeric off road grease which combines an over-based calcium-sulfonate complex thickener and proprietary synthetic polymeric technology to provide incredible performance in heavy duty off-road applications such as earth moving, mining and construction equipment.
Greased components on this type of heavy equipment are subjected to high loads accompanied by impact and shock loading. The heavy high impact loads common to off-road equipment forces all of that load (pressure) onto places where the equipment pivots, relying on the grease to prevent metal-to-metal contact.
So you can see that grease is not just gooey stuff in a tube or can but a highly engineered lubricant designed to do specific things for the demands of specific applications.
Amsoil Inc introduced the first full synthetic motor oil to meet American petroleum institute requirements in 1972. Today Amsoil is considered the world leader in synthetic motor oils and lubricants for all types of applications.
By Larry Crider, CLS, Amsoil direct jobber
www.sowoil.com
About the Author
A Larry Crider is a certified lubrication specialist and a twenty+ year veteran distributor for Amsoil inc. The worlds largest independant maker of synthetic motor oils and lubricants.
To contact Larry or get a free Amsoil products catalog through the mail go to www.sowoil.com and "click the pig"
To recieve Amsoil product information by e-mail go tohttp://sowoil.com/e107_plugins/contactform_menu/contactform.php?contact
I love to talk lubrication!
How should the idle control motor work?
95' deville 4.9L
Yesterday my car would almost stall when I came to a stop and I got an error code of a stuck tps. When I went to investigate I found out that the idle control was struggling to move down to put the car in proper idle. I cleaned it and put a bit of grease on it and it stopped getting stuck however it doesn't move smoothly. When the engine was cold this morning I started the car and messed with the throttle every time the idle control moved down quickly and smoothly but when the car got to operating temp. the idle control started moving down in a series of small steps.
Is this normal or is it a sign that it's failing?
I checked the tps it works perfectly fine.
1) First I would try taking the air intake hose off and clean the throttle body, including the butterfly valve. Carbon and gunk buildup, can cause the butterfly valve to get stuck or move slowly. Use throttle cleaner and paper towels.
2) If your error code says Throttle Position Sensor, then replace it...this is a fairly common problem.
When the TPS is "stuck", it is usually in the open or closed position. if it open when you are idling, then too much air is getting in and the car can quit. BUT I would try #1 first because a stuck butterfly valve also affects the reading on the TPS.
So I would start with #1, then the TPS. If that doesn't do it, then replace the idle control valve, in my opinion since you put grease on it...
3) Remember that you could have an intermittent problem. Just because you check something and it reads OK doesn't mean it really is when you put it back together.
4) Never put grease on idle control valves, throttle control sensors, or anything else in the intake ducts, throttle body, etc... the grease can get on a sensor in the manifold such as the MAPS, then you really start a domino effect...
Advanced Tool Design Model ATD-5289 Air Operated High Pressure Grease Pump for 25-50 Lb. Drums