My Honda 4 stroke brushcutter gets a lot of use, mostly with metal blades in heavy going situations and I would like to keep it forever.
I give the gear head a little squirt of Castrol HTB grease after every tankful while it's hot - just a ml with a medical syringe. Should I be using anything different to lube those bevel gears?
I learnt early on that any excess grease fills up the drive tube and ends up in the clutch so just a little often is my habit.
HTB will do it fine - only time I have ever seen one fail (except for 1000's of hours use) is when they are never greased. I use a bit of teflon grease (like nulon l80) and have noticed cooler gearbox temps (to the touch) in similar operating conditions.
No affiliation to Nulon, use Inox MX7 teflon grease if you want, but I am using it for everything now and it is keeping things going that really shouldn't be (eg I had a severely rust seized bearing in a trimmer head and after freeing it up it continues to perform when repacked with l80). Wouldn't have fared as well on straight bearing grease I don't think.
The reason I asked was because of advice given about the Masport Whirlwind tiller gearbox on ODK the other day, just thought the HTB I've been using for almost everything for years might not be suitable for the b/c gears after all.
I have about half a 500gm tub and an unopened tub so it might be a while til I try the teflon stuff ;-)
Doubt those gearboxes would work with the Honda which has a much thinner rectangular end on the driveshaft. Haven't priced a new Honda gearbox but suspect it would be a LOT more than $22.
I would say you normally use an EP grease for gears MM (extreme Pressure),it's just if you used a HTB grease the motor would most likely wear out before the gearbox.
Doubt those gearboxes would work with the Honda which has a much thinner rectangular end on the driveshaft. Haven't priced a new Honda gearbox but suspect it would be a LOT more than $22.
I just put that gearbox pic up as an example of how cheap the parts are ,the Honda part is $23.69 with free post.
if you used a HTB grease the motor would most likely wear out before the gearbox.
Point taken Max, yes when cold the spool or blade doesn't like to spin freely but soon warms up and spins easily.
Now I'm confused re: the various replacement gearboxes, I had a good look around on the various ones available online/ebay, etc.
They all show a splined female inside the gearbox but my driveshaft is not splined but is a rod with two flats.
My machine is only about a year old, maybe Honda has made changes. I will ask about this when next at the dealer, although I should imagine he may not be very interested if told about generic replacement gearboxes :-)
Was at Stihl/Honda dealer where I bought the b/c and asked the workshop manager/chief mechanic about using HTB grease in the gear box. "Yep, that's good. Anything is better than nothing which most people do."
Genuine Honda gearbox for the UMK 435 is $200 - how do I know? Got one today for the UMK 435 I bought for a song with a worn out gearbox, previous owner had never greased the gearbox.
None of the evilbay cheapies fit the recent UMK435 models BTW, regardless of what the sellers may say.
Conducted a post-mortem on the gearbox, dry as bone inside and the teeth on both bevel gears are cactus. Doubt it had ever been greased since new.
The rest of the machine showed evidence of severe neglect - air and fuel filters gunked, black oil, spark guard sooted up, no sign of ever being cleaned, etc.
On the good side though it came with all the original accessories in the red Honda bag and appears the metal blade had only been used briefly so I suspect it's done lots of time trimming rather than heavy duty brush cutting.
After doing a complete TLC job it is running nicely.
Great to have two machines again, saves time being able to do a bit of trimming then grab the other machine for cutting nasty stuff and then back to trimming and so on without having to change the heads.
I don't mind if people neglect their tools and I get them free or cheap when they don't start or run properly and just need minimal work to be revived. I had planned on spending $800 for a new 435, don't see decent second hand ones available often.
If your not worried about buying Genuine then you could have bought a second hand line trimmer for $10. at a tip shop and put the Honda motor on the $10 snipper or just buy a new snipper for around $190 and put the Honda motor on that .This way you end up with 6 gearboxes.
A GX35 motor new can be had new for around $150 then bolt on a $10 snipper shaft and for $160 you have a good snipper.
Nothing wrong with Genuine Honda if that's what you want though.
The Honda is far superior to any other brushcutter I have used on our rural property. It replaced two Husqvarna brushcutters which when new were top of the line (but that was long before I got them:-).
Yes, I've experienced many other brands and models Max and genuine Honda is what I want.
I'm very grateful to have acquired this second Honda so cheaply. For rural property managenent one needs both a trimmer with line and a brushcutter with metal blades, and the ability to swap rapidly and frequently between the two.
High rainfall during the last 18 months has caused unbelievable overgrowth here and we have lots of areas only accessible by foot - with gumboots...
