Lotus Elan and Lotus Elan Plus 2 Forums

Mercury Marine makes an SAE 90 gear oil that is GL-4. More available and a little less expensive than Redline. You can get it at Amazon or Walmart, or probably any marine supply store.

Not as much fun, but a little easier than mixing grease and oil.

Sorry but I cannot resist...........

It is even easier to just pump EP lithium soap base grease into the trunnion occasionally and technically its the right lube for the low speed and poorly sealed trunnion screw joint despite what the original Lotus / Triumph recommendation was.

I just finished removing the cooling systems from 7 large 150 kW industrial units using gear boxes for their large slow speed main shaft drives . The cooling systems were originally installed because of overly conservative design criteria by the equipment supplier and the gearbox supplier and also did not reflect modern synthetic gear oil temperature capabilities and low friction benefits . As a result the gear oil actually ran too cold and below the temperature level that the anti-wear additives activate which is typically around 60C and wasted energy as it was too thick at the low temperatures it operated. Professional race car teams preheat their gear and diff and engine oil for a reason !.... you cannot blindly trust supplier recommendations around lubrication unfortunately and unless people making the recommendation make their assumptions clear the selection is often very hard to understand

cheers
Rohan

rgh0 wrote:Sorry but I cannot resist...........

It is even easier to just pump EP lithium soap base grease into the trunnion occasionally and technically its the right lube for the low speed and poorly sealed trunnion screw joint despite what the original Lotus / Triumph recommendation was.

No worries. In fact, thanks for the clarification. I?ve read the many posts here, including the aforementioned ?recipe.? Seems like people are doing lots of different things, many of them because of the lack of availability of EP90 gear oil. That?s what caused me to read all those posts in the first place. I was just trying to help out.

I wonder how many of these lots of different things are better or not than anything else. My hunch is that most are at least adequate.

And how refreshing it is in this forum to not see the long and crazy threads about lubrication that I see in otherwise very rational BMW motorcycle fora. Those guys can get into something resembling religious zealotry when they discuss lubricants.

The Veg wrote:I wonder how many of these lots of different things are better or not than anything else. My hunch is that most are at least adequate.

And how refreshing it is in this forum to not see the long and crazy threads about lubrication that I see in otherwise very rational BMW motorcycle fora. Those guys can get into something resembling religious zealotry when they discuss lubricants.

I generally agree. Upon dissembling, my trunnions were definitely previously lubricated with gear oil, and they were pristine. So I don?t think you can go wrong with that method. However, there is a lubrication nipple on the trunnions, so for ongoing maintenance it might be easier to use the lithium grease, rather than try to fashion some sort of oil gun - although some here on this forum have done just that. Different strokes...