[Heathkit] CDE rotor grease

[manualman@juno.com]

In 1977, I cleaned and refurbished a CDE TR-4 rotor, bought in 1959.
Packed the bearings with wheel bearing grease. Cleaned the rheostat and
the wiper and had to replace the terminal strip with its 4 screws. The
cleaning and refurbishing time, about 2 weeks of my spare time, was the
longest time this rotor was not mounted outside. It's been through
several winters of days, near or below zero, and today it's still mounted
on the roof, working well, and turning a fringe VHF antenna, a UHF far
fringe antenna, and a 6 element FM antenna. Unless some of the gear teeth
on some of the gears are chewed up, some simple cleaning and bearing
grease, will keep these things running for a long while. The most common
electrical failures are the motor start-up capacitor in the rotor
indicator box and burnt or worn spots on the rheostat in the bell
housing.

Pete, WA2CWA

On Tue, 26 Aug 2003 19:46:44 -0400 "tuscola" <tuscola@tds.net> writes:
> 
> Hi,
> I am planning to go through a couple of older CDE rotors  and wonder 
> what is
> a good grease to use on the bearings(?).
> I am located in the Thumb area of Mi. and temp's in a normal winter 
> go
> downbelow zero so I imagine chassis grease would be to heavy for 
> winter
> operation.
> Am also going to replace the termeinal strip in one of them, 
> anything I
> should look out for?
> I would appreciate any of your idea's or experience with these 
> rotors, it ha
> sbeen 20 years since I have missed with one of these beasties.
> 73 Jim Heath/w8ngo

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