Yes Mick,
I do but and am limiting quantities very sternly until I resolve a satisfactory replacement for them. I know the original supplier for them now, and am working on a supply.
Curiously enough the gear and shaft lube they sold in the plastic jars was not what they used when they switched to using grease in the housings. Best I can figure, somebody goofed that one. The grease filled ones I've seen and, I keep small glass bottles with samples inside (I know anal huh??), have had 2 different types of grease. 1 was a caramel color and thats about what it looked like.. was cold caramel. The second was a dark reddish brown color and i believe that was a type of variant on the old fiber wheel bearing grease used on the wheel bearings in the 50's and earlier cars that had rawhide wheel bearing seals. It was very thick and was a barium sulfide compound. I do not believe that grease is around anymore ( worked good but caused liver problems they said) and I think it was last used in the construction and mining industry in the late 80's. I know I bought some from Kendall a number of years back...B524. Super thick when cold and was why they used it for very slow moving earth equipment. Stayed put for sure it did.
I think the caramel color stuff was too high temp for what they needed and what i had was as a hotplate showed too high really for what they needed, and why you saw it might not have worked very well. Hard to get low temp grease these days most are all high temp.
The reason the caramel stuff worked, even if marginally, was that eventually the shaft and steel jacketed top bushing will get hot enough to approach the melting point of the grease installed. It will wick base oil if hot enough. The problem is that number( melting degrees) is just barely higher than the number required to start flaking and burnishing of the bushing. Thats the problem I have personally with the high temp grease it wont flow early enough. You can make it flow.... put a cutting torch on it and she'll go real fast but thats not the point.
The real early dist used a cotton wick and had oilers on the outside of the housings that were to be periodically oiled manually every 3000 miles. Then they got rid of those and went to the packed "cavity well" dist, which had actual sawdust in them that was oiled with heavy gear oil. Believe it or not those worked pretty damn good especially when combined with the iron housings which in my opinion made for the best deal going.
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