It came time for me to change the oil on my Grizzly G0602 10×22 lathe and I was dreading it. For one thing, I couldn't find the correct oil called for in the manual. I called every local lube shop I could find in the yellow pages, but nobody carried anything close. Finally someone suggested I try Enco, and sure enough they had what I was looking for. Here's what I ordered for my gearbox (left) and lathe ways (right).

I waited until Enco had a "free shipping" promotion to order the oil and a few other heavy items that were unrelated to the oil change. If you're planning on getting a granite surface plate it might be a good time to order …

Next came the fun part, actually changing the oil. I had no idea how much oil the gearbox held, so I ordered a gallon of oil. Turns out I've got enough gearbox oil to last my little lathe a lifetime of use.

How much does the gearbox on a Grizzly G0602 hold you ask? About 9 ounces give or take. How many ounces in a gallon? 128. I can get 14 oil changes out of my gallon of DTE Heavy/Medium oil. If anyone has any suggestions for other uses for this oil please let me know. I've used it as a cutting fluid and it provides a reasonable finish on steel and aluminum. So maybe that's how I'll use it up. It's too thick for the ways, and besides, I've got a gallon of way oil also!

On to the "Shop Tip" portion of this post. I remember reading somewhere (perhaps in one of my recent metalworking magazines) where someone had used soda cans to make a trough to guide the oil from the drain plug out past the chip tray during an oil change. It worked great!

You can see the 9 ounces of oil filling a disposable baking sheet. Later I poured the oil into a clean dry water bottle so I could transport it to a recycling center. Here's how the color of the darker old oil (right) compared to the color of the lighter new oil (left).

The new oil is a bit lighter in color but otherwise seems identical in viscosity. I also didn't see any evidence of shavings or metal debris in the drained oil – which suggests all my gears are meshing properly.

The drain plug wasn't magnetic and I felt that adding a magnet would be a quick and easy improvement to the lathe. So I cleaned the oil from the plug thoroughly (using naptha and then rubbing alcohol) and secured a small magnet using 2-part epoxy.

I roughed up the mating surfaces of the plug and the magnet using a file to give the epoxy something other than a smooth surface to adhere to. After 30 minutes the drain plug was ready to be reinstalled. The purpose of the magnet is to attract any (ferrous) metal shavings and pull them out of the circulating gearbox oil.

Now, if your lathe uses aluminum (non-ferrous) gears this addition would be of limited benefit since non-ferrous metals aren't attracted to magnets. I'm not sure if the G0602 has aluminum or steel gears, but I added the magnet just in case.

Next it was time to refill the gearbox with the new oil.  The fill hole is located on the side of the lathe so its hard to use a funnel. The solution was to use the same aluminum can trough to refill the gearbox.

I filled a clean 10 ounce container with about 9 ounces of oil and used it to fill the gearbox (this seemed like a better method than trying to pour 9 ounces directly from the gallon jug – I'm not good at eyeballing fluids). I knew 9 ounces came out, so I didn't want to put any more than 9 ounces back in. Remember, since the oil is thick it takes a while for it to register correctly in the sight glass.

After adding the 9 ounces I let things settle for about 30 minutes and then I rechecked the sight glass. The oil registered just above the red "full" line. All that was left to do was to replace the fill plug and I was done!

Note, there's one additional tip that I came across. The drain and fill plugs are normal 3/8″ pipe thread. That means you can replace the fill plug with a 3/8″ street elbow to make it easier to fill using a regular funnel. Here's a picture from Crevice Reamer showing this handy upgrade.

You can buy a 3/8″ street elbow from any hardware store. They are $2 at Home Depot.

If anyone has any other handy tips to share please leave a comment on the forum topic linked to this post (via the link below). And if anyone has any additional uses for the other 119 ounces of gearbox oil I've got left over please let me know!