Ransomes Certes Oilers
I recently received a query about the correct "oil gun" to use with a Ransomes Certes hand mower. The correspondent asked what sort of oil gun should be used and which connector is required to work with the nipples and grease points on his particular machine. He has found some potential suppliers online although the costs of new oil guns appear to be rather high. Even so, there is a choice of connectors and he does not want to order the wrong item. Ideally, of course, it might be better to find a good quality vintage gun on eBay etc although the same considerations about connection would apply. This is beyond my knowledge, hence posting here. The images below show the correspondent's machine plus the oiling diagram from the operators' manual available on this site.
Any advice gratefully received.
Thanks.
Forums
Administering oil with a…
Administering oil with a grease nipple system.
Most "grease" or "Oil" guns for British made mowers, and indeed other universal applications used "grease" nipples and guns made by a company called TECALEMIT.
Searching online for "TECALEMIT" shows what they produced and the types of nozzle and gun they made.
(And I see, briefly looking online that they are still going, but obviously not making those style of products now)
Naturally I note from the above instruction manual that SAE 30 oil is used not grease, I myself have never encountered putting in oil using a grease nipple system.
On my equipment, which I use, I have changed the "old style" push fit grease nipples for the "modern" hydraulic grease nipples as they give better sealing, but as I say, this is for grease not oil. I didn't know you could use grease nipples to administer oil.
i.e. with the modern hydraulic grease nipples, the grease actually goes into where it should do!
Naturally if you are a completist, like myself, you desire the correct gun, with no doubt the manufacturers draw string service bag with spanners, etc.
So I'm sure Ransome's experts and seasoned garden machinery guru's will have the correct model of grease gun for this mower.
After posting my last…
After posting my last ramblings at midnight, this morning I went to look in a Ransomes Manual, and it shows the Tecalemit gun. This illustration appears in most of the 1960's Ransome's brochures.
Going back a good few…
Going back a good few years , possibly the late 40s, those straight nipples were common on motor vehicles and agricultural machinery etc . Then there was switch to the snap on nipples ( the action, not the tool manufacturer). However, as Ransomes continued to recommend the use of oil, the straight nipples did the job and survived through to the late sixties. Ransomes generally supplied Tecalemit oil guns in the standard issue tool kits ; the small one on the right for hand mowers, and the middle one for the larger motor mowers .The one on the left is a Swiss made Wanner 300-2 that can still be found on auction sites. I believe that Wanner were standard issue with Myford lathes.They were expensive in the day and still fetch strong money now. The effectiveness of the connection greatly depends on the nipples no being worn or knocked about but an old school mechanic’s trick was to take a small piece of clean linen rag and place it over the nipple and apply the gun over it. The rag acted as a seal while the oil was forced through the weave of the cloth - still works today even with worn snap on nipples.
I few years ago, I researched a supplier of straight oil nipples and drew a total blank but did find some new old stock which are now nearly all used up - together with ones salvaged from either scrap machines or ones that had a few missing and had been converted to the later pattern to avoid having a mixture on the one machine.