GEAR BOX LUBRICATION

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XVII, 26 November 1927, Page 13

GEAR BOX LUBRICATION

SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENT. Much attention has been given to the matter of engine lubrication, and right so. But it would seem that the gear-box. although it does not have to work under such extreme temperatures as in the case with the engine, should have a good deal of attention paid to it in this matter of lubrication. Generally gear-box lubrication consists of filling the gear-box with lubricant at infrequent intervals, and trusting to its permeating the essential mechanical details of that device. But if one considers the great pressures which have to be trasnmitted by the gear teeth and the shaft bearings it seems that this promiscuous kind of lubrication could well be improved upon. It would be essentially sound engineering to provide pump lubrication for gears and their shafts and bearings. It would add to the life of the gear and promote silence because it would ensure oil film between the surfaces. It would make gear changing easy because the sliding wheels would move easily on their castellated shafts, and the selector bar mechanism being supplied similarly with oil under pressure would work more smoothly and easily and gear changing might be made a most smooth and easy operation. It may be that the time will come when tho advisability of a really welldesigned automatic lubricating system for the gear-box will be considered as important a feature of car design as is the elaborate and foolproof automatic and positive force lubrication of the engine which we find on, tho majority of good cars to-day.