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Trunnions; oil or grease & how often.


James B.

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As with most things seven, there doesn't seem to be any hard and fast rule about whether you should oil the trunions or grease them; even Caterham couldn't tell me for sure. Can any one advise me and if so what type of oil or grease should I use.

 

Cheers, James.

 

 

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A fellow se7en owner pointed out that i have trunnions (no jokes please !) - so would also be interested in answer and how to apply oil etc.........

 

Matt

 

 

 

 

 

1700 Supersprint, Red Loud and wearing Flares and soon new A048 boots !

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EP90 oil is the recemmended lubricant.

Grease can lead to the trunnions running dry.

 

Not sure how often but 3-5000 miles rings a bell.

 

James Whiting used to sell an oil gun for around £10.

This combined with a cotton cloth over the nipple made the job a doddle.

 

Steve

 

Se7en-Up!

Not going to you know where with you know who in 2004 😬

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Oil OR grease yer choice it simply does not matter.. what does however is reasonable mainenance intervals.. as in do it regularly.. gotta keep ek lubed.otr they start to wear.. On other hand Brand New Trunnions are surprisingly cheap to buy.. as long as you get them from a Triumph source as opposed to Caterham :-)
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Oil, that's the stuff to put in trunnions, good old fashioned EP90, squirt it down the filler 'til it runs out past the dust cover just below the filler hole, a bit messy but worth it, you may find that the oil leaks out the bottom of the trunnion casting, if they have steel plates in the bottom, in this case then you may have to remove them from the car and somehow seal them, not easy once the oil is in the space where the sealant is to go, oh the fun of 7 owning, but altogether better than those Rose joint things. Nigel.

 

1982. 5 speed, clamshells. B.R.G / Ali. The True Colours.

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My trunions have a grease nipple, which sounds normal from the thread...

So to help me avoid making a big mess unnecessarily, can I put oil in a conventional grease gun, or will it leak everywhere?

Or is the JW gun (or other guns) specially designed for use with oil and grease nipples?

If I can't presumably I just unscrew the nipple and squirt some oil in (e.g. using syringe).

Thank-you!

MikeK

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EP 90, that's right. The handbook specifically says do not use grease for the aforementioned reason. I 'Oil up' every 1000 miles, or more frequently if its been idle for a time.

My mate had one fail on a spitfire at 80 mph on the M6. The car looked like chitty chitty bang bang when the inflated raft blows up! He had time to indicate and pull into the hard shoulder however. *wink*

 

Excellent!

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As ever, no hard and fast rule (as you said...) but ideally EP90 oil from a conventional grease gun. You can mix lubricants here (it's non critical) and on an old Spit I had a mixture of oil grease and god knows. It lasted OK till one MoT it was worn out - upon stripping the mixture was nice and fluid with no evidence of lack of lube.

 

The disadvantage of oil is it leaks out and if not replaced rapid wear sets in. This was a favourite on Triumphs of the 60s and 70s if neglected, which they all were. Grease is more tolerant of this type of abuse but as stated above will eventually go hard...and rapid wear sets in.

 

If I had a leaky one I'd grease it regularly till replacement time. The steel cap is at the other end from the nipple anyway so it's easy to flush through with fresh grease.

 

In short it's not critical as long as you do it regularly. Say twice a year or every 3K. Or more, it won't hurt and takes 5 minutes.

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Nope. The grease gun is quite a biggie, about the length of a bycicle pump with a handle on top.

 

Looks a bit like a Weapon of Mass Destruction, but has so far only proven to be a Wepaon of Leaking On My Garage floor.

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