I bought a used PM20 industrial planer awhile back. I asked the guy a question about changing the oil and the answer was that he never did. That got logged in my lil brain as a to-do. Thing is, I could never locate the manual for the planer online. A very similar looking Jet was all I could find and it stood to reason that the Jet replaced the now discontinued PM20 when WHM brought the two together. They are actually quite different under the shrouds.
Anyway, some personal distractions kept me from that part of my brain with the to-dos for a year (and the shop, too, so no additional hours on the planer). I got to it last weekend.
If you've never seen treacle, or treacle with metal filings, this 'oil' was a dead-ringer!
It was definitely time to make up for lost maintenance time so I took the gear housing off, brushed the chains and pulleys with a brass brush to knock the gunk off then hit them heavily with grease.
The power-roller tension screws have, what I discovered, were holes in the top for adding lubricating oil. They had enough dust in the holes to be useless, however.
...but nothing an Allen wrench could poke out for next time.
I will say, however, that the fill plug for the oil was in the most obnoxious place. In this shot, I have a plastic tube into the hole so...
...I could squeeze the oil through the tube to the box. I assumed some treacle remained so I filled it until it overflowed then opened the drain a big for a big blob of blackness to escape.
This is the difference between the old and new. Moral? If you have a planer that takes oil, go change it!! Wish these had hour-meters on them... wonder if that could be retrofitted? hmm...
(okay, how many of you went: "oil? my planer has oil?!")
Naturally, I like woodworking as a hobby, but an ice hockey tournament will easily get me out of the shop :)
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Oil? Maintenance? What's this you speak of?