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Michell/Thorens Turntable Oil

M

MacGurky

Member
I use Mobil 1 0W-40 I fully synthetic motor oil in the main bearing of my Michell Orbe. I've just purchased aThorens TD-124 and plan to use this same oil.
Anybody think this would be a problem?
 
The TD-124 is pretty picky with oil, get it wrong and the speed will drift as it warms up. The direct modern equivalent of the original Thorens oil is this stuff:

Mobil DTE Oil Medium - 30ml

Mobil DTE Medium is a premium performance circulating lubricant designed for applications including steam and hydro turbine sets.
www.lubefinder.com www.lubefinder.com
 
Tony, thanks for that - guess you don't think that Mobil 1 will damage bearing but may cause speed fluctuations so may try and then compare with your suggestion.
 
I don’t know Mobil 1 at all. Oil really isn’t my area of knowledge at all, though I understand some modern oils can harm sintered bronze, which is what all the bushings in the 124 are. I assume they are in the Michell too, so it is likely fine. The 124 is fussier than most decks though as the motor runs fairly hot, especially if the eddy brake fine speed control is doing a lot of work, so you need an oil that works with that, which the original Thorens stuff did, as does the equivalent I linked (which is what is in my deck’s motor and main bearing).
 
If it can be of any help: When I was running a 126 II and a 125, I noticed that the 125 had slightly more play/tolerance in the bearing than the 126. And after some experimentation, since I had some tins of Mobil 1 0-30 and 20-40, found that the tighter bearing worked perfectly with the 0-30, while the looser bearing lost any perceptible play with the 20 - 40.

Mobil 1 is a fully synthetic oil that keeps engine bearings safe at very hot 10,000 RPM, so I imagine should be OK at a cold 33 RPM.

So perhaps the choice of oil viscosity should take into consideration how much play an individual bearing has.

I don't claim to know any dark secrets about turntables, just my empirical two cents.
 
The correct stuff is a ISO46 viscosity turbine oil. The mobil DTE medium Tony linked to is suitable.

The issue is that additives in other oils can damage the sintered bronze bearing material.
 
The Michell Orbe also has a bronze bearing that's why I thought Mobil 1 would be suitable - it is recommended by Michell.
 
There is a lot of space in a 124 main bearing so bung a fair bit in. You need to get oil into both the top and bottom bronze bushings. If you find most of it falls out the bottom don’t be entirely surprised, a very light smear of grease on both sides of the thrust-plate gasket can fix that.
 
Nothing to worry about, it is simple engineering of a very high standard. The main bearing in any TD-124 is somewhere between 50 and 70 years old. It is a design with a removable thrust-plate sealed with a gasket, and chances are this, like most of the deck, that will need some attention by now. Really nothing to fear here, it is a very well documented classic deck. There are many huge threads here and elsewhere on the internet documenting every last nut and bolt. It is one of the most significant hi-fi designs on the planet IMHO, well worth learning the service procedures.
 
Tony L said:
Nothing to worry about, it is simple engineering of a very high standard. The main bearing in any TD-124 is somewhere between 50 and 70 years old. It is a design with a removable thrust-plate sealed with a gasket, and chances are this, like most of the deck, that will need some attention by now. Really nothing to fear here, it is a very well documented classic deck. There are many huge threads here and elsewhere on the internet documenting every last nut and bolt. It is one of the most significant hi-fi designs on the planet IMHO, well worth learning the service procedures.
Click to expand...
I used to have one. Cost me the equivalent of about 50 euro around 1978, sold it for 10 times as much about 15 years later. It was a beautiful piece of engineering, very mid-20th century. Everything was big and strong and of marvelous quality. A pleasure to handle and to behold.
Unfortunately I could never get a steady speed, it varied as the motor warmed up. I even had the motor re-wound, but to no avail. Was constantly opening it up to move the "drag" magnet around. At the time, pre-internet and pre- 124 Cult, it was all very difficult.
 
PaulMB said:
Unfortunately I could never get a steady speed, it varied as the motor warmed up. I even had the motor re-wound, but to no avail. Was constantly opening it up to move the "drag" magnet around. At the time, pre-internet and pre- 124 Cult, it was all very difficult.
Click to expand...

That could well be a wrong oil choice. As I understand it, which may be wrong, there are factors that need to be equalised as the operating temperature changes; the motor bearings, and also the coil resistance which alters a little as it heats up. I’ve never fully understood this, but I have found if the oil is too thick (e.g. typical engine oil) the deck starts slow and speeds up over the first hour, if the oil is too light (e.g. Schopper) it starts fast and slows over that period. I’m talking very small degrees here, but enough to make one want to tweak the fine-speed adjust. The oil I linked to is right, I have next to no drift over time now. As ever it looks like Thorens thought this one through. It is an exceptionally well designed and engineered turntable IMO, the problems come when one deviates from the original specifications and service procedures.

That said I’ve likely been lucky with my motor. It is in very good condition and I’ve only had the oil-related issues I describe; very slight drift over an hour or so, never wow, flutter etc. With the heavy iron platter the speed/pitch stability is as good or better than any deck I’ve ever heard. Rock solid.
 
Yes, today, with all the information and spares availability, I might have got into getting it up to perfect speed. But in the early '90s I just wanted to replace it with something, certainly of inferior engineering quality, which would simply play my records.
I already have a 37 year-old car and a 43 year-old motorcycle.....
 
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