Re-lubing

[Rukkian]

I am interested in what guys have done to relube when using Krytox. The main thing I am thinking about is what to do for the cars that make it to districts, which will be 2+ months after our pack race.

Do you just put in a small drop, work it in, then clean it out, or completely remove the axels, relube, then reinstall and re-align?

[Stan Pope]

...what to do for the cars that make it to districts, which will be 2+ months after our pack race.

When would that relube take place? (I'm hoping that it is in the few days just before the district race. Some places collect the representative cars shortly after their pack race and might have to run the district race on 1 or 2 month old lube ... like sending your car by slow boat to a proxy race in China!)

[sporty]

Oil does not last longer than 5 to 7 days. Trust me on this one, Not sure others agree, but I have dealt with it most of the year on a monthly basis and have issues after 7 days of the cars being slow.

You should not need to re-prep it, depending on how many runs, but usually good for 20 to 50 runs, You loose a little speed, not re-prepping them but not very much.

Just for me the oil does not seem to last longer than 7 days.

Sporty

[Rukkian]

Guys Thanks for the replies.

I had heard that oil will dry up, which has caused us to move our test/tune night to sometime the week of the pack race. My big question is how to re-lube.

The normal proceedure for using oil seems to be to put the oil on the axel before installing on the car, spinning the wheel, then remove the wheel and wipe off the oil. If the cars are then put together and aligned and ready to race, what do you do to re-lube?

I can see issues with pulling the axels back off to relube, as it may be difficult to get the alignment dialed in once again. Is there an effective way to use oil once the axel and wheel are already installed?

[Stan Pope]

I'm with you on pulling the axles! Even indexed, I have qualms about ability to restore the alignment after reinstalling. Straightness and rotation variances are just enough to mush up your fine tuning!

If you have expectation that the joint will become contaminated, then just reapplication of oil would not be enough ... a cleanup of both surfaces is needed.

While Krytox is supposedly less sensitive to "just enough to coat but not enough to produce surface tension" than Nye-Oil, I think that "just enough" is still the best plan.

I've heard nothing about the effectiveness of compressed air (as for cleaning computers) to blow out contaminants and/or excess lube, but I think it would be worth experimenting with. It would probably solve both problems (remove contaminants and remove excess.) A can of clean compressed air with its small tube nozzle is cheap enough to try. I think I'd avoid my usual source of compressed air, since the compressor seems to maintain too much water vapor in the air unless a filter is installed in the output side.

Maybe someone who has actually tried that approach can comment on validity.

[psycaz]

I use a krytox blend, I just put a drop in the wheel bore - side between the car body and wheel. Then spin it in. Have the car tilted so the oil can run down the axle into the bore. Couple finger spins is all I worry about. Then a couple more with the wheel back to parallel to the ground.

I would believe the process should work the same for straight krytox, but you would probably want to make sure to not get more than 2 drops in, otherwise you will end up with too much and the car will slow down.

[Kenny]

Krytox does in fact have an evaporation but I've never attempted to sort out what that drying time is since I've never left it to chance.

My experience has been that your biggest enemy is dust and dirt contamination. It's important to keep the car clean and isolated as long as possible to avoid gunk.

I like to treat the axles with two honest drops - applied to the axle from the inside of the wheel which is already mounted on the car after prep but before alignment. (Alignment board & area kept clean and dust free ) IF you apply more than a couple of drops don't sweat it, even if you saturate it with Krytox it's not gonna bother anything but more than two drops is simply wasting product since you're gonna blow it out in the next step anyway.

After application then use a can of compressed air to spin the wheels by angling the air nozzle at the "spokes" of the wheels while you hold the car almost level. You want the wheel to stay out on the axle near the axle head, so tilting the car slightly while you blow with a few bursts of air helps. You will generate very high rpm so be careful here, but that is what you want to do. The wheels should spin very nicely and fairly quietly. Also, be sure to spin the wheels in the correct direction. Once you've given the wheels a good spin a few times, then use the air to *gently* blow out any excess oil from the inside through the hub gently blowing excess towards the axle head - it will only be the slightest amount if any as some will invariably spin out previously unless you applied more than two drops. At any time when the canned air begins to form a freeze line or get really cold, stop for a bit and let the can of air warm back up. Also, be sure to keep the canned air upright at all times or you'll be spitting moisture or even ice! I like the cans of air for computers that come with nice long red tube extensions. (Costco or Sams I think)

(Welders and HVAC guys: Dry nitrogen is superior replacement for canned air)

Krytox is very friendly in my opinion and once treated you can run it constantly dozens and dozens of heats with no degradation, in fact sometimes it actually gets faster during the day depending on ambient temperature. In my opinion though, once an event is complete - I would seal up the car in plastic zip loc bags or tupperware until needed for another event at which time I would retreat the axles as above.

A day or two before the next event, if an inpection gives me any doubt that my axles/hubs have hair or dust then I wouldn't hesitate to pull them (keeping the axle/wheel combos together and noting body location ) clean them thoroughly in DNA, blow dry with canned air (the stuff is very handy!), re-install, then treat as above, realign, and go racing. Perhaps it's possible to clean axles and hubs without removing them from the car, but alignment to us is really no big deal and we'd always re-align anyway to take no chances - especially after a long day of heats, handling, and faulty stopping sections and...you get the picture. Besdies, the setup may be different from pack to district to council or invitationals since track types and lengths may change.

To be honest, I came to really dislike graphite after playing with liquid lubes for a while, mainly due to the mess that graphite makes, but that Krytox is quite pricey. Packs that buy a community bottle and share are on to something in my opinion as long as people understand it.

One last thing, I've heard a couple folks have sorted out a hybrid of Krytox and other stuff to gain even more advantage. My last piece of advice on this topic is to avoid mixing Krytox and graphite lubes...I don't think they play well together at all. In fact, if you've ever applied graphite to a set of wheels, they are graphite forever and should not be used with Krytox...you cannot get the graphite out. However, if you want to convert Krytox lubed wheels to Graphite all you need to do is DNA wash thoroughly and dry and you should be ready for graphite!

I guess that about covers it. The bottom line is that Krytox is VERY forgiving, just wet it, blow it out and run - just keep it clean!

Good luck,

K

[Rukkian]

Thanks to all for the responses, this is exactly the information I needed, and has solidified the decision to purchase a community bottle of Krytox for the pack.