Posts: 791
From: Northridge, CA USA
Registered: Jun 2003
posted December 08, 2004 09:47 PM
Well Eiki specifies silicone oils and Dow Corning 44 grease. The grease is used inside the cam tank and the oils are applied by drops to shafts when re-assembling the projector. The felt in the cam tank should be saturated with silicone oil.
Use of wrong or incompatible lubricants will cause more problems that it will fix. One thing to avoid is spray "washes" like WD-40.
Choices are difficult since lubricants must be chosen that don't attack the various plastics used inside the machine. For best results buy the factory specified items from your dealers (it's really hard to find silicone oil in the US though it's apparently popular in Japan).
Interestingly enough, the maintenance manual of my Eiki (NT2) specifies that one should never use lubricant or oil on the inner parts of the machine... But, then again, I suppose this was intended at the time to force you to buy a specific product recommended by the manufacturer. Indeed, as John says, plastic parts should be treated with silicone only. For metal parts, when only requiring a little bit of oil, I use some that's being sold for sewing machines (I've done the same on my Debrie).