used motor oil for chain oiling

[veodoble]

Hi bike-tech-maniacs!

As I'm building my own chainoiler, following some ideas borrowed from Shackleton's unit (smart use of tropical acuarium bits !), I wanted to raise this question so everybody could give their opinion:

Would it be good (in terms of lubricating) to use used engine oil to fill the reservoir, instead of normal lubricating oil? This way you give a second use to many liters of oil (that otherwise would go to recycle) and it seems to me that used oil has the right amount of viscosity to oil the chain and sprocket.

Please feel free to join this debate since any answers will help us all!

cheers!

[AlanH]

Engine oil is too thin for a chain oiler. Used engine oil also contains all sorts of nasty cancer inducing chemicals so recycling it by flinging it about and dumping it on the road or handling it on a regular basis to top up an oiler are not really recommended. A big container of new cheap gear oil is much more suitable.

[veodoble]

yeah, you're right about the chemicals and everything... I thought about it but wanted to get deeper ideas like yours.

and when you say it's too thin for a chain oiler, you mean that it isn't enough dense to lube it properly, don't you?

thanks

[AlanH]

Engine oil is really too light and will just fling off the chain too fast. Gear oil is more 'sticky' and, although it flings off more than dedicated chain oiler stuff, it's certainly usable. When I was doing courier work, I used EP80 or EP90 gear oil in a Scottoiler and it did the job pretty well.

The other thing with less viscous oil like engine oil is the flow rate. If you're doing a custom oiler you can design it specifically for thinner oil, but for commercial oilers, engine oil flows through far too fast even on the minimum setting.

[veodoble]

nice, those are the technical answers I wanted to hear!

well, I'll keep on designing my oiler and will let you know how it's going

for sure I won't fill it with used oil, which I always throw at the recycling place near here (the gal there is beautiful and I'm always looking for stuff to throw so I've got an excuse to chat!)

cheers

[Roadcat]

Hmm, I've got some oil for recycling from the service I just did on the car. Instead of taking it to my recycling centre (which is staffed by grumpy, bearded men), I'm thinking about flying to Barcelona with it instead and recycling it there!

Just doing my bit to protect the environment.

[veodoble]

no jokes, you should see the queue of people that usually bring stuff to the recycling point: a few are women that bring kitchen oil just to be ecological, another few are bearded homeless men that want to trade their junk for another junk, and the rest is normal people (young and healthy men like me! Hurrah!) that bring one or two dead batteries each couple of days and stay there for half an hour! We've got here a box full of batteries and dead toners.

cheers!

[stageonesimmo]

EP oil (or Extreme Pressure) is the best stuff as engine oil can't handle the peak pressure loads associated with transmission applications - the chain links will be under as much load as the bearing journals in an engine, but the surface areas involved dramatically increase the pressures which go beyond the capabilities of the oil and it gets squeezed out from where it needs to be - EP oils can handle larger pressure before getting squeezed out and are thusly, better for use in a chain oiler.

There is more science involved, but I'm watching the telly....................

[veodoble]

outstanding explanations, thanks to all of you that shed light over this issue...

I guess SAE 80 or SAE 90 will work ok, as AlanH said.

That's what I'll use.

Thank you very much!

[kevsky]

alan h is spot on about gear oil.ive used it now for eight years and its much cheaper than scottoil.the only problem the wife winges when it drips on the block paving. you cant bloody win.....