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Cydrome Leader

wrote:
On Wed, 8 Jun 2016 21:19:35 +0000 (UTC), Cydrome Leader
wrote:

Tom Gardner wrote:
On 6/8/2016 12:13 PM, Cydrome Leader wrote:

The only thing that would make even a lick of sense is there were
unshielded bearings in there originally and that's why there were grease
ports. Why the thing was pumped full of grease later is a mystery.

Anybody seen anything like this before?

I've done it myself many times. I should have removed and plugged the
zerks but was too lazy.

So what used to be inside this motor? The same bearings, but with no
shield, and tons of grease? What the standard pratice for fractional HP
motors 50+ years ago?

No such thing as "standard practice" Cheap motors used plain bearings.
Many better motors used ball bearings. 50 years ago was only 1966
-ball bearings were pretty common - but usually not fully sealed or
double sheilded. Many would have been "oil lubricated"uising thick

Any reason for that, or why the shielded/sealed stuff took over? Was there
some incredible development in stamping out shields or lubricants?

oil, rather than grease - with felt or synthetic rubber seals. I
remember some old repulsion start induction motors from the late
fifties with oiled ball bearings, as well as some with oiled plain
bearings - the big ball bearing motor was on the bale elevator. I
think the motor on the pump-jack was also ball bearing, and the one on
the cement mixer was plain bearing.- oiled, not greased

Some were even ball bearing on the drive end and plain bearing on the
bell end