Grease or Oil in Mill Head?

[tdotmtl]

Hey all, I am getting ready to put a new motor on my TOS FNK 25 vertical mill, which is belt drive, but has a 10:1 gear reduction in the head. The previous owner had just pumped endless grease into the head, some of it had hardened, very nasty. I took the 6 hours to tear it right down, and clean it down to bare metal. Should I use grease or oil in there? There seems to be drain ports for excess oil, and there are zerks everywhere, which I am told use oil.

I was going to go with either Shell Gadus 220 or 450, or for oil, ISO 68 or gear oil (70-140w).

Any advice is appreciated!

Thanks!

 

[neanderthal mach]

"If" that head was designed to use oil my bet it would be a light weight spindle oil. Bridgeports, and most clones use spindle oil and it's a total loss system. That was an expensive and not that uncommon well made mill, it sure as hell can't be that hard to find a user manual for it to then be sure about what to use.

 

[Bill D]

does this say on page 28? I could not figure out pages.
Bill D

TOS FNK 25 Milling Machine manual

On edit page 31+32 says total loss oil in head with a felt soaked in oil resivoir.

See chart IV starting on page 47

 

[Bill D]

I have to say the English language used in the Chezh manual seems easy to read. Much better then modern Chinese manuals translated to English. I think the translator knew something about machines. I assume it is all metric. I know nothing about soviet era machining.
Bill D

 

[aboole71]

Oil tends to flush out those wear particles. And grease lubrication tends to fairly quickly get squeezed out or move away