And that was what we were talking about in another thread Ken, cup grease, can't find it anymore. The picture of the can of Western Tire grease that I posted over there was wheel bearing grease and it was a very thick, waxy, fibrous grease. But in our application in the grease cups of the AD distributors the Chevrolet Service Manual does call out CL (chassis grease).
But getting back to the “fiber disc”, Ken you’ve brought up yet another explanation for the disc, that is as a restriction for the grease. If you take all of the information gleaned from the parts books over a 40 year span, it appears to me that the engineers at GM also had some disagreement on what to put behind the grease cup in the distributor. Over the years they listed fiber discs, felt wicks, and even a lock washer in was illustration. What was that all about?? And I’ll repeat what I said in the other thread, that these parts books were written by technical writers, not engineers or mechanics so they are not always the gospel.
What Ken says about the disc acting as a restriction probably makes more sense than anything that I’ve heard so far. And I have found them behind most of the grease cups I’ve had out, but one in particular was missing altogether. It appears that at one time in the past they had a felt wick inserted in the spring although that doesn’t make any sense it your pushing grease thru it. It may have been that the oil separated in the older greases and the wick was there to hold that. Apparently they did away with the wick in the later distributors. But the Bakelite disc seems to have been there from the very start so the disc and a spring is all that I’m putting behind my grease cup, filled with chassis grease. Hell, if the distributors that I’ve got in my ’50 and ’54 managed to survive a half century so
far, I’m sure they will outlast me no matter what I do as long as that includes is some sort of lubrication applied regularly.
DG
Last edited by Denny Graham; 06/25/2011 12:41 PM.
