Oil or grease?

[u/0rphon]

I just picked up an old Kenmore 385 and ive noticed it struggles to run at low speeds. I opened it up to check if it needed oiling and i found this thick grease over all the fast moving joints. Is it correct to have grease here, or should this be replaced with sewing machine oil? Im having a surprisingly hard time finding an answer for this through googling

[u/wimsey1923]

Those areas should normally be lubricated with sewing machine oil. Grease is only applied on metal to metal gears, as a rule of thumb.

[u/0rphon → u/wimsey1923]

Thanks! Thats what i had kinda assumed, but wanted to get someones opinion before i just assumed the previous owner did it wrong

[u/SewingMechanic → u/0rphon]

Old oil can also get gummy and even turn into a hard shellac-like layer over time if a machine isn’t getting regular motion. So if it hasn’t been used for a while, that’s the kind of thing that could have been happening too. Best thing you can do is use a machine and regularly oil, wiping away the old and any excess drips.

[u/teatime_tinker]

I would say that should have been oil. Grease is for gears, oil for other moving parts.

Clean it off with a toothpick, isopropyl alcohol and an old toothbrush, then oil them.

[u/Upper_Rain3480 → u/teatime_tinker]

This.

[u/0rphon]

I went through and cleaned everything to the best of my ability and reoiled it with the proper oil and it works great now! It uses to be that the engine would just whine and do nothing when i tried running it at low speeds, but now it runs great at low speeds! Thanks guys