Appreciation post: That old Otis machine room smelled like oil for a reason

I worked on a 1960s Otis elevator over on 3rd street last Tuesday. The machine room had that thick oil smell and I noticed the metal parts were in way better shape than a 15 year old MCE unit I serviced the week before. The difference was all in the lubrication routine, they used a heavy oil and checked it every month back then. Now everything runs dry and fails in half the time. Has anyone else noticed how much better those older setups hold up compared to the modern compact stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

thomas.piper1mo ago

Told the building manager on that job they needed to switch back to a heavier oil and actually stick to a schedule. Told them it would save them a service call every six months. They didn't listen of course, and the brake wore out ten months later. The old Otis units had that thick 140 gear oil that just stuck to everything. Modern stuff uses that thin synthetic junk that evaporates or leaks out before it even gets a chance to protect anything.

davidwright1mo ago

Exactly. That thick 140 gear oil was basically like honey, it coated everything and hung around forever. These new synthetics are so watery they just drip past the seals and vanish. I've seen it on a few older machines where the owner switched to save a buck upfront and ended up paying double in labor to keep the thing running. The worst part is the noise too, those thin oils don't dampen the gears at all so you can hear every click and clatter from three floors away. It's almost like the engineers forgot that older equipment was built to run on specific stuff, not whatever passes for modern lubricant.