Grease for Kitchenaid Stand Mixer

[TxHeat]

The first 6 pics are of the inside of the gear housing cover and the gear assembly the way I found them when I removed the housing cover. In the 5th and 6th pics you can see some pockets of separated oil. There was more on the other side, not to mention all the oil that had already leaked down into the bowl.

If the new grease is as good as some others say, and IF I didn't over or under grease it, then I shouldn't have to do this again!

One interesting note, I did not find a nylon gear in this unit. Either this was prior to their use or they never used one on this unit. It's a 6 quart, 475 watt unit so they may not have used nylon in these mixers.

Edit to add, I did not see any sign of damage to any of gears or other parts.













This is the grease I was able to scrape out using a popsicle stick and a small screwdriver. There was a third to a half more than that, that I had to wipe out with paper towels and rags.


The next 3 are after everything is cleaned up.






These are some shots of the grease I used. Sorry Pablo, I had already ordered this when I saw your post!






All cleaned up, re-greased and reassembled. Ready for flour, water, salt and yeast!










Ok - Ok - Not so fast! It wasn't exactly like that!

After I got it re-greased, re-attached the gear housing cover and the controller board, I plugged it in and turned it on.

Old oil started dripping from the planetary!

I thought for several minutes that there MUST be some way to rectify this awful oversight short of disassembling it!

There was not!

So, off with the cover, out with the gears and then took out the planetary. There really wasn't much oil OR grease in there! I disassembled it, cleaned it and re-greased it and put everything back together.

THEN I took the final two photos.

I hope ya'll find this post either interesting or humorous...PREFERABLY BOTH!

 

[TxHeat]

I actually keep a tube of Super Lube in my "grease box"! I didn't use it because................well frankly, I never thought of it or I might have!

 

[TxHeat]

Used the mixer today to mix and knead my first loaves of plain white bread in several years. Mixer worked great!

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[SOHCman]

I used CRC brand food grade grease in my Kitchen Aide.

The factory grease failed and hardened up. These units can be very demanding on grease depending how heavily you put them to work. The attachments/grinders can be VERY hard on the gears, and have had to replace the metal gear on the PTO shaft. (using the factory grease)

I would probably just go with the Amsoil food grade grease today, but have no complaints about the CRC.

 

[TxHeat]

Since my last post I've done over a dozen batches of bread dough with this mixer.

Even with a double batch of whole wheat flour, (7 cups of flour), and including a half cup of honey, so it's a quite sticky dough, the motor gets only barely warm after mixing and then kneading on speed 2 for 10 minutes.

By the way, total weight on one of these batches is 54 ounces or nearly 3 1/2 pounds of sticky dough.

I'm very pleased with the outcome and thank everyone for their feedback!

Larry

 

[Kira]

So where was this reserve of oil which dripped out? Were you at all certain when you reassembled it the second time or were you trial and erroring it?

If I swing by Houston may I have some bread?

BYOB (Bring Your Own Butter) of course! Kira

ps I'm working on developing a butter based food service grease so if it did drip.....(Ha-Ha) k

 

[Stewie]

Originally Posted By: bornconfuzd
The first 6 pics are of the inside of the gear housing cover and the gear assembly the way I found them when I removed the housing cover. In the 5th and 6th pics you can see some pockets of separated oil. There was more on the other side, not to mention all the oil that had already leaked down into the bowl.

If the new grease is as good as some others say, and IF I didn't over or under grease it, then I shouldn't have to do this again!

One interesting note, I did not find a nylon gear in this unit. Either this was prior to their use or they never used one on this unit. It's a 6 quart, 475 watt unit so they may not have used nylon in these mixers.

Edit to add, I did not see any sign of damage to any of gears or other parts.













This is the grease I was able to scrape out using a popsicle stick and a small screwdriver. There was a third to a half more than that, that I had to wipe out with paper towels and rags.


The next 3 are after everything is cleaned up.






These are some shots of the grease I used. Sorry Pablo, I had already ordered this when I saw your post!






All cleaned up, re-greased and reassembled. Ready for flour, water, salt and yeast!










Ok - Ok - Not so fast! It wasn't exactly like that!

After I got it re-greased, re-attached the gear housing cover and the controller board, I plugged it in and turned it on.

Old oil started dripping from the planetary!

I thought for several minutes that there MUST be some way to rectify this awful oversight short of disassembling it!

There was not!

So, off with the cover, out with the gears and then took out the planetary. There really wasn't much oil OR grease in there! I disassembled it, cleaned it and re-greased it and put everything back together.

THEN I took the final two photos.

I hope ya'll find this post either interesting or humorous...PREFERABLY BOTH!

Nice pics, how old was it before having to change the grease?

 

[TxHeat]

I'd be happy to share some bread with you Kira!

What I did not do before reassembling was clean and re-lube the planetary gear. Turns out that there was just a tiny amount of separated oil in the bottom cover plate of the planetary gear, but it was enough to leak out when the shaft was spinning. I had to pull the gears back out, knock the shaft out, clean that plate, clean and re-lube the gear in order to clear the problem.

 

[TxHeat]

I said in the initial post that it was 14 years old, but that was a guess. I later found the invoice which shows I had bought it as a refurb in early 2003, so to me it was almost 13 years old, and probably 14 years from manufacture.

 

[CBR.worm]

Interesting, I changed the grease in the planetary gearset, not realizing that there was another gearbox above it. That was about 15 years ago, maybe I should revisit it.

 

[TxHeat]

Originally Posted By: CBR.worm
Interesting, I changed the grease in the planetary gearset, not realizing that there was another gearbox above it.


On mine you must disassemble the main gear box in order to get to the planetary. I think some of the different models are assembled very differently.

It's my understanding that the grease in the main gearbox will hold up better/longer if it's run regularly but not "overworked", whatever that means, I guess not overheated. If it IS run too hot too often OR not run at all for long periods the grease deteriorates/separates more rapidly.