vaseline as lube?

[zunny]

Can I use vaseline as bearing lube? I heard vaseline is too viscous and trap dirt more easily.

 

[thgirw]

One concern should be the operating temperature of the bearing, right? Vaseline has a melting point just above body temperature, if your application will not generate that much heat so that the components do not reach a metal temperature of melting degree of the vaseline than there shouldn't be a problem.
But this is just one side of the story. If you are going to use it in some machine make sure that the guarantee of the component is over and you are not going to use it again. It would be a bit hard to explain it to the manufacturer in case it requires some kind of a repair or adjustment.

 

[Tmoose]

What type of bearing? What environment, sealed or unsealed, etc.

It is very desirable to achieve EHD "ElastoHydroDynamic" lubrication in ball and roller bearings for best life.

To achieve EHD requires some minimum bearing speed and minimum lubricant (base oil in grease) viscosity at working temperature.

No idea if vaseline has a base oil, or its viscosity. I can;t picture it being very effective as a bearing lubricant.

 

[zunny]

The bearing is R-24 ball bearing, and we don't know what our customer use it for except vaseline is used as lube. The bearings became stick and were returned to us. We cleaned them with kerosene and re-greased them, finally they worked like a brand new. We suspect that vaseline deteriorate after some kind of chemical reactions, or long period of storage.