Oil foaming.

[BlackMoon]

Hi, im wondering if its normal that the oil in the oil sight on the side of the IH gearbox 'foams up' (lots of little air bubbles about 1mm in size, oil level rises past the top of the sight) when the mill is in operation, especialy at high speeds?

Do I maybe have not enough oil in or too much? im using princess auto all season hydrolic oil.

Iv heard that 'foam' in your gearbox can damage bearings, is this true? Or is this not foaming but just air inclusion?

Seems to only take about half an hour for all the bubbles to go away..

[neilw20]

Searched for Anti Foam on Castrol site.

http://www.castrol.com/castrol/searc...ategoryId=3245

I am sure you can find something more suited to your needs here.

[BlackMoon]

well im not even sure if this qualifys as foam or not.. id assume all hydrolic oil would be antifoam to some degree, and it seems more like air inclusion from being mixed in forceabley by the gears then foam

[Shev]

I remember this being brought up a couple years ago...

IH head lubricant

What gear oil are you using?

[Runner4404spd]

your fine. i've been runnning like this for well over 3 years with my IH mills.

[SCzEngrgGroup]

I remember this being brought up a couple years ago...

IH head lubricant

What gear oil are you using?

Rather amusing, the arguments *against* using ATF, as it might not hold up to the loads and "high speeds" of an IH mill head? The loads and speeds are a tiny fraction of what they are in even the smallest automotive transmission which will typically go 100K miles without so much as an oil change....

Regards,
Ray L.

[philbur]

Ditto

If nothing else it ensures the gears/bearings in the top of the head get their fair share.

Phil

your fine. i've been runnning like this for well over 3 years with my IH mills.

[BlackMoon]

Hmm I read that only babbit bearings really get ruined from foaming, is that true? (That and inconviance of leaving the breather hole if it gets bad, its never gotten that bad for me)
Makes sense if thats true, since a tiny air bubble would become a giant void if it got in that tiny gap, where with any kinda bearing the bubble would just get rolled over, and a dozen other bearings would still be in contact taking the load, with lots of gaps for oil to remain without getting displaced by a tiny bit of air.

[BobWarfield]

your fine. i've been runnning like this for well over 3 years with my IH mills.

Yep!

[philbur]

I think the problem is related to pressurised lubrication systems. The oil pump doesn’t work well when it try’s to pump air. Also plain bearings rely on the fluid being incompressible in order to generate the necessary pressure to keep the two sliding surfaces apart. Air entrainment makes the fluid compressible which interferes with this pressure generation process and allows the two surfaces to potentially come into contact. I would not expect splash feed plain bearings to be effected.

Just a thought
Phil

Hmm I read that only babbit bearings really get ruined from foaming, is that true? (That and inconviance of leaving the breather hole if it gets bad, its never gotten that bad for me)
Makes sense if thats true, since a tiny air bubble would become a giant void if it got in that tiny gap, where with any kinda bearing the bubble would just get rolled over, and a dozen other bearings would still be in contact taking the load, with lots of gaps for oil to remain without getting displaced by a tiny bit of air.